Interesting piece. Another example about how, on the left, some leaks are better than others.
The bottom line, of course, is that this all happened because Beauchamp’s narrative was a perfect ideological fit for The New Republic. I’m quite sure his diary installments would have escalated to the coup de grace — the inevitable baby-killing story, or perhaps the rape and murder of a beautiful Iraqi woman (ala the film “Casulaties of War”). He probably already has it written.
Beauchamp’s biggest error was in being talentless. His diaries were derivative and pedantic. He was imitating a style most of us have seen; therefore, we became suspicious.
For example, the rivers of shit? That’s straight out of Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War novel “The Things they Carried.”
It’s particularly amusing that The New Republic editor was holed up with the magazine’s “literary section” editor the day after this hoax broke. I mean, for heaven’s sake, couldn’t that guy — “who has run the literary section with distinction since 1983″ tell Foer, “Yeah, I’ve seen this somewhere before…”
