P.S. Is it just me, or are the board lefties running wild? I mean, completely melting down? Anyone else enjoying the spectacle?

Even more than that, the entire DNC, congressional leadership and all the “useful idiots” like Ian, TP, keogh etc. are melting down. The big McGovern moment comes next fall though.

[GP Ed. Note - Since Ian didn't notice, the United States Congress is also on a one-month vacation. I guess we should withdraw from the USA??]

Is it just me, or are the board lefties running wild? I mean, completely melting down?

The war is starting to go better for America, which means badly for the left. Even the MSM is hedging its bets a little bit. The left sees the chance that America might actually win this war and they are crapping their pants.

Conservatives have attacked Beauchamp solely because he has reservations about the Iraq war.

If I’m not mistaken, Ian: that, right there, is an outright lie, tending to make you something of a liar.

Not for the first time. But – my purpose right now is to analyze the present, so I won’t pursue that thought.

A lie is an intentional falsehood. The evidence is all around you – right in front of your very eyes – right in this thread (starting with GPW’s article) – that conservatives have attacked Beauchamp, not because of his reservations about the Iraq war (even partly), but rather, solely because he fibbed and attempted to slander our troops.

Since you are swimming in that sea of evidence, how can your falsehood not be intentional? There are only a few ways:
– if you misunderstood the discussion around here, and on other conservative blogs, because you were just about the dumbest person who ever lived;
– if you are just about the most intellectually dishonest person who ever lived (i.e., you didn’t mean to tell a specific lie about conservatives, but, massive accretions of dishonesty in your method of apprehending facts inevitably drove you to a false conclusion / statement;
– if you are clinically insane.

Those, I admit, are “possible” in the sense that they do not violate the physical laws of the universe. But – to use gil’s method – I hereby posit the alternates “unlikely” (or choose to credit you with a bit of sanity, intelligence, etc.). To use Occam’s method: the simplest and most straightforward explanation, Ian, is that you uttered your falsehood intentionally and knowingly.

Other of your claims / implications in #7 are equally as mendacious; but I don’t “have all day”.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/08/beauchamp_recants.asp

Oh snap.

For more, browse Allah… he has some good questions about the timeline here.

This proves that Scotty is a liar (I’m looking at you here, gil), the only question is who he’s lieing to. Allah and armylawyer bring up a good point in that regard. Spreading lies about the military is not a criminal offense and Scotty boy couldn’t be punished really. But lieing under oath can get 5 years. So who is he going to lie to? TNR who can’t do anything but sulk, or the military who will lock him away for 5 years if he lies?

___

P.S. – Wow, #7, you’re completely right! Everyone attacked STB because he’s “critical” of the war! (“Critical of the war” is a funny euphemism for “archly anti-war, anti-military fabulist with history of leftist war-porn” but as you like…) It could not possibly be that his stories were ridiculous on their face and were printed in a venue that has a history of “too-good-to-be-true-too-perfect-to-check-but-too-delicious-not-to-print” stories that fit flawlessly into the Metanarrative.

Yes. That’s it…

I’m wondering though, can his unit, as individuals, sue him for libel?

Your conspiracies and “hopes” are so much easier – and tastier – for you, aren’t they? than admitting you’ve lost on the facts that are known.

Link please!

It seems likely that the soldiers knew any admission to an investigator might hurt their own careers…and I imagine there is a desire within the unit to keep this under wraps…

It is unlikely that TNR lied about receiving corroboration and in my opinion anyone who says they are lying about receiving corroboration are simply insanic conspiracy theorists.

And then he caps it off with this:

There seems to be more to this than has been reported and so I wait, neither swayed nor unswayed.

So gil has flatly stated that our soldiers are lying and that TNR is not, even though TNR cannot provide proof of their claims, nor can he — but he’s not “swayed”.

As thoughtful and well written of an obit for the TNR this post was, it still doesn’t rectify that you participated in the “outing” of a soldier on the front line, Mike Rogers style.

You must have missed this.

And if your point was to avoid causing trouble for our active-duty troops, you could have thought of that prior to sending someone to Iraq to write articles that portray them as murderers and baby-killers — especially when it’s not true.

[With Beauchamp's fictions,] Here, finally, is the master narrative sought by TNR. Because war “degrades every part of you,” soldiers can’t be expected to make normal moral decisions. Bad behavior? The war made them do it… But no self-respecting soldier wants TNR’s bogus absolution. Soldiers pride themselves on being held to a higher standard than the rest of us, and to deny them the dignity of being moral agents renders meaningless the distinction between a dishonorable discharge and a Bronze Star…
[...]
TNR is in effect saying, we know that bad things happen, therefore something like what we published probably happened at some time. Yes, but did it happen when and as you said it did? It may not matter to TNR, but it matters to the soldiers at Foward Operating Base Falcon. They have been accused of dishonorable behavior. If the accusation is false, they have been slandered.

At this point, I expect nothing more from TNR than more demonstrations of the fine art of ex post facto fact checking. But what about Pvt. Beauchamp?

He stands at a crossroads with his whole his life before him. Frankly, I hope the demands of military justice are satisfied by merely letting him finish his service. He must live with himself among his betters, and for now that is both a fitting punishment and an opportunity… The challenge of being a good man… When it comes to being a good man or something else, there is no middle ground. You’re either trying to become a better man, or you’re not; you’re moving in one direction or the other.

The author, Rev. Paul McNellis S.J., is a Jesuit with an impressive military record.

But at what price? Sullivan has certainly risen in rank and reputation, if his career trajectory is in the hands of those paid to understand what his audience wants from him and if it is not the chimera it appears to be. It can’t be denied, however, that his success includes a significant philosophical turnaround coupled with a moral agnosticism that while not surprising of a media figure, is surprising for those of us who, in an oft-changing landscape, depend upon those things that never change — particularly from one whose apparent pretense was one and the same.

Sullivan doesn’t so much beg the question as to his current stance, but whether he was ever sincere. Was his early work, the work that gained him attention including that of the New Republic, an affectation or has he truly matured? Is the doubt he throws over his early work a betrayal of himself and/or of ourselves? Does our disappointment mean anything, since the message is mightier than the messenger (meaning that no matter how many lies a man later tells, they do not detract from an earlier truth)? If so, have we learned nothing and if not, what does this say of the slew of other chameleons who survive and adapt by adopting a la Gergen, Brock, et al.?