We are now entering week ten of the New Republic‘s shameless stonewalling in the Scott Beauchamp saga. Over at Powerline, Scott Johnson pulls a gem from the TNR archive–Frank Foer on the “wisdom” of stonewalling:
That was March 2001. One wonders whether Foer has since changed his mind about the morality and wisdom of stonewalling, or is simply compelled by the reality that disclosure will be a nightmare for him. Foer not only defended Beauchamp’s reporting and conducted an extraordinarily dilatory investigation into the accuracy of Beauchamp’s Diarists, but also had the audacity to impugn the motives of those who questioned Beauchamp’s stories. Foer at one point even took to the airways to demand an apology from those of us who questioned his magazine’s work, insisting that “we got it wrong.” Foer and Peter Scoblic, the magazine’s executive editor who we know also spoke with Beauchamp on September 7, haven’t just failed to get to the truth of this, they’ve intentionally hindered the efforts of those who would by silencing their own author. I’ll say it again. Beauchamp doesn’t stand by his stories, they weren’t true, and he’s told his editors at the New Republic as much. Will anyone at TNR dispute this? Not likely.
