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This description is hard to square with CJR’s own coverage of the Scotty Beauchamp story, which ran under the headline “Why do conservatives hate the troops?” CJR does not examine the complexities and challenges of pseudonymous writing, or the fact that the New Republic has failed to produce any corroboration for Beauchamp’s account, or the delicacy of fact-checking spouses of your own employee. Instead, CJR writer Paul McCleary attacks milbloggers for being chickenhawks.
How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.) While there are some very legitimate questions about what Beauchamp wrote, nothing, it’s worthy of note, has been proved false yet. But that hasn’t stopped the sharp knives of a slew of bloggers from coming out.
McCleary clearly has a lot to learn, starting with an understanding of what a milblog is and the experiences of those who write them. (Hint: mil is short for military.) CJR’s donors may want to ask for a refund. Update: McCleary has come in for some well deserved ridicule at Little Green Footballs, Blackfive, baldilocks, and Riehl World View. Update II: Paul McCleary has responded to the WWS and others with this note:
I really walked into this one. I actually spend a lot of time on milblogs. I was careless in my choice of wording when I wrote the piece. What I meant was the whole community of blogs that have sprung up in the same universe as milblogs — Hugh Hewitt, etc., who act tough about the war, but have never served, and have never left the comforts of their air-conditioned offices to see what might be going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. I was reacting to the constant drumbeat of personal information they have been posting about Beauchamp, including what he did in college, etc., that don’t really have anything to do with the story. That said, my point was pretty sloppy. I’ve written a lot about milblogs, actually: Interviewed Matthew Currier Burden for CJR, as well as a couple soldiers who were blogging for the New York Times. I’ve also spoken to, and exchanged emails with guys like Yon and Roggio and such, and I blogged when I was an embedded reporter in Iraq back in ’06, which doesn’t make me a milblogger, but hey, it’s something, I guess. Like I said, I really stepped in it because I didn’t take the time to clearly define what I was talking about.
Color me unimpressed, but I’ll let Mudville Gazette’s CDR Salamander respond:
Mr. McLeary is too focused on discrediting the messenger (the old ‘Chickenhawk’ tactic) than the message. If one served or not makes little difference on the validity of one’s argument or story – it is the substance of the product.
Blackfive’s Laughing Wolf and baldilocks echo the same sentiment. I’m just enjoying the sweet irony of milbloggers giving the Columbia Journalism Review a badly needed lecture on how one sets about making an argument.
