The funniest (and again, saddest) thing about the Beauchamp nonsense is that despite the hysterical cries that he is HURTING THE TROOPS AND LIVES ARE AT STAKE, no one really had read the TNR piece before the outrage pimps started linking it massively. I hadn’t read ‘Shock Troops’ until it was linked repeatedly by the usual suspects and made it to memeorandum.com As I stated yesterday, the terrorists and the insurgents are not reading TNR. They are not going to justify their next IED, their next suicide bomb, their next sniping of a Baghdad patrol, their next, well, whatever, on the tales offered by Beauchamp:
And, as I have stated before, I don’t know if the things he wrote (Beauchamp) are true, and I really don’t care. What I find disgusting is the desperate attempts to prove that these piddling things did not or could not happen, when we all have documented proof that FAR WORSE things have happened. I mean, fucking seriuosly:
– A GI ran over a dog? OMG NO. OUTRAGE, SLANDER! COULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.
– A GI played with skeletal remains in a GY? OMG, NO WAI! NEVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED- WHY DO YOU HATE THE TROOPS.
– GI’s made fun of a disfigured woman? OMG, IMPOSSIBLE.I mean, seriously, folks. Get a fucking grip.
The funniest thing (saddest) about this whole affair is that but for the outrage noise machine in the right wing blogosphere, no one would have even known what this guy wrote. I sure as hell didn’t until the professional idiots started their link circle jerk and it made it to memeorandum.com. But now, you all have worked yourself into such a lather it is only a matter of time before Howard Kurtz and someone else pick the story up and run with it- and it gets national and international attention. BRAVO. Way to smear the troops, knuckleheads.
Congrats- I even nailed who would pick it up. Howard Kurtz in the WaPo today:
The New Republic’s anonymous “Baghdad Diarist” identified himself yesterday as Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private in Iraq, and disputed as “maddening” accusations that he had invented his accounts of cruelty by American soldiers.
The magazine’s editor, Franklin Foer, disclosed in an interview that Beauchamp is married to a New Republic staffer, and that is “part of the reason why we found him to be a credible writer.” Foer also said Beauchamp “has put himself in significant jeopardy” and “lost his lifeline to the rest of the world” because military officials have taken away his laptop, cellphone and e-mail privileges.
And, according to Memeorandum, guess who is linking this to make sure it receives MORE exposure-
NRO
Hugh Hewitt
The Dumbest Person on the Planet (aka Dan Riehl)
Red State
The Confederate Yankee (** Update *** Memeorandum errantly linked Confederate Yankee to this. CY does have startling news about how BEAUCHAMP HAS DESTROYED NATIONAL SECURITY AND HIS TROUBLES ARE JUST BEGINNING! HANG HIM, HANG HIM FROM THE NECK!)
It is a safe bet that by the end of the day, there will be literally a dozen links from Malkin. Now, a minor story has made a major news outlet, and hopefully the wingnuts can push this until CNN International Edition carries it. Well played, nutters.
At this point it isn’t so much that these outrage pimps are stupid, it is that they are stupid and predictable.
Larv
The next suicide bomber to attack the troops will no doubt turn out to have been radicalized by the callous slaughter of his dog by an American servicemember. A whole new crop of terrorists, the Al-Fido Martyrs Brigade, will be taking credit for attacks on US service members. And it’ll all be the fault of Pvt. Beauchamp and TNR.
Really, this is such a joke. These are not serius allegations at all. What they are is politically inconvenient, and only in terms of domestic politics. The Iraqis and the international community could care less about it. But revelations of the sort of careless cruelty that is so common in war might damage public support or hurt recruiting, and we just can’t have that. But the odds that this will endanger American soldiers are somewhere between “slim” and “are you fucking kidding me?”
Walker
It is like Last Temptation of Christ. All the protesting encouraged a lot more people to see it than normally would. It was quite a spectacle when I lived outside of Knoxville at the time, and I know quite a few people that went in just to see what the fuss was (and came out saying it was a boring movie).
I better time could be had with the anti-protestors. Dressed in Satan outfits and dancing around the protestors – they had style.
JL
John, I can’t wait until Michelle and others justify the possible murder of Pat Tillman and the cover-up. If you read the comments at TPMuckracker, you’ll see what I mean. Sad that they have to defend the indefensivable.
ConservativelyLiberal
Well, John, if they are going to broadcast how stupid they are, they might as well go all of the way. Yup, you called this one right out front, and dead on target.
What was basically a non-starter of a story is now going to be international news, and these blathering idiots on the right have only themselves to thank for it. Not to worry though… Give them a few to get it together and they will pin it on the left and places like BJ.
Keyboard commandos my ass, more like petulant, spoiled rotten brats who throw a fit to make themselves feel important.
Hope they are proud of the work they have done here. Oh, right… It is someone elses fault!
The Other Steve
They don’t seem to understand. The New Republican is HATED by all of the left leaning blogs. They refuse to link to them, they refuse to talk to them, they refuse to even acknowledge their existence.
Why? Because TNR is run essentially by a bunch of Republicans.
The last anybody really mentioned them was when one of their columnists was caught sock puppeting his own articles. There was a lot of fun had responding to his accusations of Blogofascism.
But regardless, nobody reads TNR. They’re desperate for hits.
And I suspect that’s the real reason why Hewitt and these jackasses are hitting this story. They got the memo to send hits to TNR, and so that’s what they are doing to help out the Republican media company that owns TNR.
The Other Steve
shorter TOS: This was never about soldiers. It was about sending hits to certain websites.
jenniebee
Well, they got what they wanted. They made enough of a stink to get somebody saying things they didn’t like identified so that the Army could shut him down. Without doubt, Assrocket Malkin and the rest will count this as another Rathergate victory, as if they’ve just proved anything other than that public information about what’s really going on with Teh Troops is being very closely managed by the chain of command.
Which we already knew, but whatever…
Tim in SF
Digby has a post on this. As usual for Digby, it’s pretty good.
John Cole
JL- I read the thread you are talking about, and I have a feeling that commenter greg is our own DOUGJ.
John Cole
Tim in SF:
I read the Digby post, too. One minor quibble with this part;
Zifnab
See, that’s what I said about Imus at first. That this whole thing got bullied up (because seriously, who the hell normally listens to Al Sharpton?) in order to jack up Imus’s ratings, and the damn thing spit-balled out of control when people refused to laugh it off as silly over-hyped liberal censorship.
So I don’t know. It could be that TNR is just desperate for attention and the wingers are pitching in to help out. It could be TNR is getting pillaried for being “not rightwing enough”. Or it could be that TNR is trying to catter to readers who aren’t completely Bush-o-fied. It could be an attempt to discredit anti-war protesters by propping up Beauchamp, then revealing him as a lying sock puppet. Who knows?
Andrew
Can’t we all, left and right, at least agree that Howie Kurtz is a huge wankosaurus?
The Other Steve
That’s not DougJ. The spacing and kerning is all off.
It might be a spoof, but spoofs usually don’t claim to have served in the marines.
Jake
And then they can scream about the Librul troop-hating, terrorist-loving MSM, gnash their teeth at alleged mis-quotings of things said on the fRighty Sites, wank themselves stupid at all of the attention they’re getting, throw another bag of pork rinds in the mircowave and await the next battle.
The Other Steve
Digby makes a funny point. TNR complained about the blogofascists of the left, but until now they’ve not felt the full power of a fully armed WingNet death star.
over_educated
Actually, you know your in deep when even Howie Kurtz is skeptical:
BLOGGER: “Let’s be clear — Scott Thomas Beauchamp went to war with the specific goal of ridiculing and belittling the war effort. Yes, he wore the uniform. In virtually all cases, that’s praiseworthy. But in Beauchamp’s case, he wore the uniform as a means by which to make his artistic bones; he knew that in making those artistic bones, he would undermine the efforts of his brothers in arms. In short, he went to war with the specific purpose of weakening the war effort.”
KURTZ: Can we really conclude that based on one blog entry?
John S.
What an inopportune moment to have a mouthful of hot tea.
Bob Owens
Get your basic facts right, John.
I have not blogged the Kurtz article at all.
Rome Again
Gee, where’s Cassidy when he needs to see this.
cd6
Isn’t this a little like Sen. Vitter telling people not to use hookers?
Krista
Being exposed to that much dumb has got to be toxic. You need to put some sort of radiation warning up the next time, John.
John Cole
My bad, memeorandum was wrong, so my basic facts are right, theirs were not. I didn’t check the links.
Now that I have, though, great catch on his violation of national security! Should he be hanged by the neck until dead, or should it be a firing squad? Whatever happens, let’s make sure he is punished to the fullest and his life is ruined. We can’t ever have anything but official centcom press releases about THE WAR ON TERROR AND OUR VICTORIOUS STRUGGLE IN IRAQ.
BTW- have we found out if he has ever jaywalked or cheated on his girlfriend? Does his pecker curve to the right like the Clenis or is it mottled like Michael Jackson’s.
I hope you intrepid reporters can get to the bottom of these important issues, because OUR TROOPS LIVES ARE AT STAKE.
When did you guys turn into a bunch of sorry wankers?
Tim in SF
It’s predictable because it’s following an established program.
John S.
CY has always been a sorry wanker.
You just happened to take off your wanker-colored glasses and can now distinguish the difference.
Zifnab
I present to you a hypothesis. The right wing blogsphere doesn’t actually exist. It is an intrepid new computer program pioneered by the Bush Administration NSA and created for the sole purpose of furthering the goals of the United States of America through internet warfare. Dan Riehl, Ace of Spades, Michelle Malkin, and Glenn Reynolds aren’t real people, but are instead sock-puppets of the massive government supercomputer SadlyNo! has dubbed WingNet. Unfortunately, the program – much like everything else the Bush Admin implements – was designed on the cheap and does exactly what it is designed to prevent. Either way, Hillary Clinton will have a hell of a time playing with it come 2009.
chopper
anybody with more than two brain cells to rub together can tell that a soldier pointing out that other soldiers have run over dogs and made fun of people in a war zone really doesn’t have that much of a negative effect on the war effort. if it did, we’d have no business waging any kind of war. i mean, maybe next he’ll point out that someone drove their tank with their bootlaces untied, that’ll be the nail in the coffin.
we all know all this right-wing bloviating is just another symptom of their desperate need to pin the screwup that is iraq on somebody else. they need to know that deep down inside, we would have won the war if it wasn’t for those democrats/liberals/meddling kids. it doesn’t matter if they blame the ASPCA, if it makes them feel like its someone else’s fault they’ll go with it.
obviously, this one guy is the reason we’re failing in iraq. he’s singlehandedly responsible for ruining morale and sinking the war.
Joshua
This is ridiculous. Not only are there the other stories that you cite, John, you can go to YouTube and see video of the troops doing things like forcing Iraqi kids to chase after a Humvee and basically fight each other over a bottle of water.
Even if Scott Beauchamp were lying, and the nutters have, as usual, not been able to point to a single actual instance where he did in fact lie or even stretch the truth — relying instead on their usual lame attempts at character assassination (more like character lynching, really) — that YouTube video and many others like it would still be there.
over_educated
confederateyankee is all over the Kurtz comment section making absurd arguments. His latest is that the description of the glock ammo is slightly incorrect in one of Beauchamps blogs.
More irrefutable proof that he is part of the vast left-wing conspiracy.
Dreggas
Great, fuck the kerning, now we’ll have to argue about the Rifling…
Bob Owens
And to think, I do recall days when you was regarded as a rather well-respected, thoughtful blogger. I once shared that thought, alogn with amny others, even when I sometimes disagreed with what you had to say. Why? Because you made logical, reasoned appeals for your position based upon the available evidence.
How times and people have changed.
I guess I should not be surprised that you would completely miscast the substance of an operational security violation for the much more dramatic characterization of ” violation of national security,” followed by your hysteronics calling for a hanging or a firing squad, and the assorted snark that follows.
It is much easier to write this way, and perhaps excites a certain readership that you desire to appeal to, than the kind of thoughtful engagment that was once your stock in trade.
I hope this path brings you happiness.
John Cole
Pro-tip, Bob-
I am mocking you.
Apparently you don’t feel slightly silly calling for the prosecution of a soldier under UCMJ for violating security because of what is essentially a year old vague, throwaway blogpost that was only discovered after an intensive wingnut witchhunt, so I feel the need to taunt you mercilessly. No doubt the terrorists had it years in advance of your crack squad. Sorry that is not well-respected or thoughtful.
Now on to the important stuff. Should he be hanged or shot for this breech of OPSEC? How can we tie this in to the left and the media hating the troops? And does an inaccuracy regarding ammo used in Glocks prove that Beauchamp hates America?
Inquiring minds want to know.
John S.
Golly, Cole.
Bob sure proves how unserious you are about this whole matter.
/snark
The Other Steve
LIES! LIES! ALL LIES! Those videos are proof that Youtube is biased towards liberals. In fact, I’ll bet the videos are fabricated by a special elite squadron of liberal spoofers!
The Other Steve
Don’t you mean “Back when you agreed with me”?
Why use all the flowery language about logic and reason and such, when your real beef is that John is making fun of your pro-idiotarian stupidity?
Chad N. Freude
Mr. Owens, could you possibly send that message to some of your other colleagues?
Ugh
TIDOS Yankee is here?
pseudonymous in nc
If only Bob Owens could direct his boundless energies to disrupting the lives of people who actually want to harm Americans. Ah, no. He’s targetting the ‘real’ enemy: people who can be bullied into silence.
fRIGHTWAY
Come back to us John! We miss you!
A Hermit
So what exactly is Beauchamps big crime? He basically just points out that war is hell. This is news?
I guess it is to the wingnutters. They’re still expecting flowers and candy…
A Hermit
Oh, and thank you to John Cole for taking these morons apart. Well done sir.
Steve J.
despite the hysterical cries that he is HURTING THE TROOPS AND LIVES ARE AT STAKE, no one really had read the TNR piece before the outrage pimps started linking it massively.
They did exactly the same thing with an obscure professor from the sticks – Ward Churchill.
TenguPhule
Shorter Bob: Pecker!
Xanthippas
The mocking here is merciless and vicious. I love it.
grumpy realist
When did the so-called conservatives turn into such a bunch of Stalinists?
You don’t want nasty stories about Iraq, you don’t want nasty stories about health insurance, you don’t want nasty stories about the economy…..
A nation of Larry Kudlows. Just fuckin’ great.