After going through a minor production to upgrade my cable system so that I get Logo, the gay and lesbian TV network, I only have a few minutes to write before the Democrats’ debate which I will be live-blogging.
I had hoped to devote more time to a post on the Beauchamp incident because, I believe, it’s one of the most important media stories of the year. Perhaps, when I have more time next week, I may do a subsequent post and consider some of the issues I didn’t address here. Or at least supply links to posts by other bloggers who have addressed them better than I could. A number, including the Weekly Standard‘s Michael Goldfarb, Hugh Hewitt‘s Dean Barnett and Confederate Yankee‘s Bob Owens (among others) have done a great job covering this matter.
In short, this story just adds to the accumulating pile of evidence of the eagerness of media outlets to publish (or broadcast) stories which fit with the narrative they wish to tell without adequately vetting them. Think Dan Rather/Mary Mapes and the National Guard Memos.
And it shows the role blogs are playing in correcting errors in the mainstream media and opinion journalism.
Don Surber, a blogger/columnist, who joins the aforementioned bloggers in his excellent coverage of l’affaire Beauchamp wonders why there is a market for lies such as those of this dishonest soldier (Via Instapundit).
In the eagerness of the media elite to report on U.S. atrocities, they neglect stories of those committed by our enemies:
few in the press picked up on how atrocities committed by the terrorists are turning off Iraqis and causing dissension in the enemy’s ranks.
It is in this way like Vietnam, when the atrocities of the Hanoi army were ignored, while the crimes of our soldiers were overhyped.
At a time when our nation is at war, too many in the media seem ever eager to paint a negative picture of our armed forces. Perhaps, they’re not really suspicious of the troops, they just believe they act worse when helping enforce the misguided policies of a Republican commander-in-chief.
The New Republic might well have found a soldier less critical of the government’s policies had it sought a diarist to report on military life in a war declared by a Democratic president.
In short, this is just one more example of media bias. Failing to vet a story because it so easily fit their narrative. Getting that “story” right trumped confirming its facts.
Just the left-liberal’s usual racism, narcissism and delusions of (false) power and safety, GPW.
“The soft bigotry of low expectations”… To a left-liberal, it doesn’t matter how low our enemies go, because they’re just yellow- or brown-skinned animals (that’s the racism) whom we drove to distraction. Only our actions and goals ever matter; we – not our enemies and their own goals / choices – cause whatever they want to do to us (that’s the narcissism).
All we have to do to make them go away or act differently, is act differently ourselves; in other words, we secretly have complete control of the situation (that’s the delusion of false power and safety).
Via Weekly Standard and Michelle Malkin: Matt Sanchez, covering our troops on location in Iraq, asks an expert about the feasibility of Beauchamp’s tale of a Bradley driver who allegedly runs over dogs on purpose.
His answer?
#2
You forget, ILC. This is the Army that can flush an entire Koran down the toilet. Running over a dog with a Bradley is just a milk run after that. If not, team killing fcuktards like keogh and Beaushamps will make it appear so, regardless of reality.
The Weekly Standard’s recent commentary (last 24 hours) is excellent. First, they wrap up Confederate Yankee’s expose from yesterday, in pithier language: One of TNR’s Experts… Refutes TNR: The truth about Bradley Fighting Vehicles
Next, they review some other good commentaries, summing up The New Republic’s corruption and moral dereliction: The Baghdad Fabulist
As milblogger John Noonan has put it (quoted in above TWS link):
To which TWS adds, “At least in his imagination, anyway.”
Obviously, I can’t add a thing to all that.
Dean Barnett responds further to TNR’s latest transparent, pathetic response.
But there’s more. I hadn’t quite understood, for example, just how physically impossible is Beauchamp’s vivid, unforgettably detailed decription of the alleged dog-severed-by-Bradley. (Note: Beauchamp’s description becomes possible if someone had hung off the side of his “speeding” Bradley and severed the dog with a sword; but that in itself would be extremely far-fetched, and Beauchamp never alleged it.)
Read the whole thing!
A couple more Beauchamp bits:
Before Beauchamp was revealed, John Barnes, a statistical semiotician who blogs on Amazon, took some guesses about who he’d be, based on the style and viewpoint in his writing:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1A3L4YEO74C19
It’s amazing how close Barnes came. He predicted: early- to mid-20s, pretentious, a consumer of college / MFA writing classes, at least somewhat sociopathic, and a military-wannabee. He was wrong only on the last point. And only partly: Barnes allowed that Beauchamp might have some military experience and might just be a *combat*-wannabee. Which proved true (Beauchamp is a behind-the-lines mechanic).
Next – Confederate Yankee has questions about yet another “colorful” (but disgusting, sociopathic) Beauchamp anecdote:
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/236955.php
There is a minor gay-related wrinkle in the Beauchamp affair, in that one Max Blumenthal posted a hit piece on The Nation, Huffington Post, and other liberal sites, attacking The Weekly Standard for using “former gay porn star Matt Sanchez” as a source. (Notwithstanding the fact that Sanchez was in fact relaying statements from named military sources.)
Throbert-
Yes, some of the same stupid references have surfaced here. Facts to many are less important than attacking the messenger.
This is the “politics of personal destruction” that the Clintonistas mastered in the 1990s.
We have to live with it evermore, I fear.