We haven’t had a Beauchamp update for a while now, mostly because there isn’t much to say. Beauchamp’s stories were a mix of exaggeration and outright fiction, and none of the tales has been corroborated by anyone other than TNR’s anonymous sources, at least one of whom has refuted TNR’s characterization of his statements when given an opportunity to speak on the record. TNR continues to pay lipservice to the questions raised by this magazine and other observers, but refuses to retract the stories. Further the editors at TNR haven’t spoken to Beauchamp since July 27, when he admitted that he did not ridicule a female IED victim at his base in Iraq as described in “Shock Troops,” just one day after he expressed outrage that anyone would dare to question his character or credibility. He now claims the incident happened at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, where a PAO has said she considers the story to be nothing more than “an urban legend.” There was an interesting report from Newsweek over the weekend that described TNR’s efforts to corroborate the stories as having “stalled”:
It’s worth noting that TNR’s current position rests entirely on the premise that Scott Thomas Beauchamp is being truthful while the United States Army is lying–about its investigation, about Beauchamp’s access to a telephone, about his statements recanting the stories he wrote for TNR. This despite the fact that Jonathan Chait has acknowledged the possibility that Beauchamp “knew that this [the ridiculing of the female IED victim] took place in Kuwait all along and he was lying about it,” and that they have no evidence of misconduct on the part of the U.S. Army. TNR has also claimed, presumably on Beauchamp’s word, that he was coerced by the U.S. Army into making statements:
We wonder why the Army would coerce a statement that contradicted its own findings, mainly that all the allegations made by Beauchamp in his three piece for TNR were “found to be false.” Now Foer says that “it’s important to be thorough,” and to that end the magazine will wait, no matter how long, for Beauchamp to contact the editors before making any decision about the veracity of his stories or his credibility as an author.
