Changing the story when you’re under attack is such an overused and obvious technique that you’d think people would be embarrassed to employ it. But not Jonathan Chait at The New Republic who jumps into the fray with a largely ad hominem attack on William Kristol in order to deflect criticism of TNR in the ongoing Scott Beauchamp scandal.
Chait does not respond at all to the many details and questions about TNR and Beauchamp raised in Richard Miniter’s Pajamas Media story of a few days ago. It’s hard to believe that Chait was unaware of the story since it was linked on the Drudge Report and viewed by over a hundred thousand people. But just to make sure, PJM has arranged for the link to be sent directly to Chait’s email. It would be interesting to see how he responds to Miniter’s reporting that Beauchamp was married to a fact-checker at The New Republic (among a raft of other uncomfortable truths).
Chait can choose to make this an ideological food fight, but it is not. This is a story about media and how it functions. The fact that Dan Rather lost his job because he could not admit a mistake should have been a lesson for all. Apparently The New Republic, despite Shattered Glass, etc., has not learned it.
UPDATE: PJM is following blogger reaction.
FURTHER UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that Chait’s story appeared in the print version of TNR and therefore closed before the Miniter/Pajamas Media story. It is worth noting, however, that the PJM story has been out for two days now with no response from TNR that we know of. Chait’s response to the Weekly Standard was, as noted, a non-response anyway.
After a while I think you just have to feel sorry for TNR and the MSM in general. They have been trying to gain some crediblity after Stephen Glass, just to have it flushed down the toilet again with SOP of their group think. I am still willing to believe they believe their own nonsense, hence the “we are conducting our own internal investigation blah, blah, blah” but after a while it just looks sad and pathetic.
A comment over at QandO:
It appears from this that Beauchamp got busted down a rank.
In the department of unintentional humor, I read a book review on the Powell’s Bookstore website, reprinted from The New Republic.
“‘Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero by Lucy Riall’ ‘The Hero Machine’ a review by Alexander Stille in The New Republic on August 16, 2007:
So Jonathan Chait is hurling himself into the breach to protect editor Franklin Foer and his stooges Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp. This is a dazzling case of the magazine doubling-down, and points to a future dramatic production far exceeding the Stephen Glass fake-story fiasco and movie, once Foer’s fake-but-accurate defense inevitably crumbles.
Enter new owner Can West, which is anything but liberal in its top-down approach to the editorial policy in its various publications. Will it indeed ‘cement TNR’s center-left ideology’, as Foer expects, or will it give up wasting resources in defending Beauchamp’s politically correct fables? Tune in the next time Foer emerges from his bunker and addresses his oh-so-nicely-busted slander against the US military.
Chait has previously distinguished himself as an ad hominem warrior so this is nothing new. Lots of heat but not much light, to use an old saw. The TNR folks keep digging the hole deeper.
Heh…yep, and TNR’s response is different from the normal MSM response how? heh… Let them eat their own crow…
gk says: “After a while I think you just have to feel sorry for TNR and the MSM in general. ”
I say, why? I feel just as sorry for TNR as I do for the suicide bomber that has a premature detonation.
Malicious propagandizing is hardly worthy of sympathy.
And now Andrew Sullivan is defending TNR by attacking Victor David Hanson? He’s not going to take back this?
Read TNR’s accounting. It is as I predicted: honorable and, except for one small inaccuracy, it checks out. All the aspects aggressively challenged by the usual propaganda organs have been verified and corroborated. The military is now conducting its own investigation. Given the record of such formal investigations, I’m not as confident in the Pentagon as I am in TNR. Can we now expect apologies from the people who smeared and maligned the magazine and its soldier-reporter? I doubt it. The attackers are not the kind to acknowledge their own errors.
or this
Well, I trawled through the various knuckle-dragging websites and there’s still no actual, you know, evidence that he fabricated anything.
or this
Again, it is fascinating that this tiny incident, in which a soldier’s account of his time in the Iraq war has been disputed by his superiors, and in which we have not yet heard the final word, is of such immense importance to the pro-Bush right.
This case has struck a lot of nerves. Of course, excitable Andrew has long since found another crowd to butter his bread. Where’s the concern about the soldier being married to the TNR fact checker? Only in America can someone like Andrew make a buck writing. Some folks have a lot of nerve suggesting W has lost touch.
AlanC says, “Malicious propagandizing is hardly worthy of sympathy.”
True, but I guess I still feel empathy for them (TNR and the rest), as they’re going through some tough times. They know they’re history and are extremely frustrated as they also understand they have no way out of the abyss of their own making.
I speak of management, primarily, as most of the reporters have to know what has to be done (admit it in public or not), but are powerless to take the steps needed, so draw down an ultimately dwindling paycheck in the interim.
They’ll (the reporters again) get out and eventually prosper in the future; the “Politico” is an early example of where they’ll go, though that experiment is not a foregone success at this early date.
If Chait and TNR were upset and vented their furstration at Kristol, you can bet dollars to donuts that they will react to the possible busting of their “budding Hemingway” with even more vitriol.
This is all part of TNR as “victim”.
The question that TNR will try to obscure .. who is the victimizer ?
Of course, it is the fabulist, Mr. Beauchamp.
There is little doubt; incest can also impair the judgment of those too close to the scene.
Also see battered wife syndrome.
It could get worse before it gets better.
As we all know the Clinton legacy dictates that lying is ok as long as it is about sex.
The reason why TNR is delaying is because they haven’t quite figured out how to sex up the story.
Everybody does it wont cut it.
Earth to TNR – Its not the lying, so much as the cover up that really buries you in the end.
Re Chait, I don’t do this full time, but it seems to me that the NY Times op-ed by the 82nd Airborne guys is being treated with respect by the same people who are attacking Beauchamp – they may think it is mistaken but they recognize that it was done seriously and in good faith and they are engaging its arguments. The TNR pieces are fair game because they were not done in good faith and were not presented as what they really were. The difference in the reaction pretty clearly refutes both Chait and Sullivan with respect to “knuckle-dragging web sites.”
Could you explain why TNR should feel obligated to respond to PJs. Far as I know, PJs has not once responded to its own critics.
Could TNR be shooting for jury nullification?
In TNR’s world Kristol is the war’s Mark Fuhrman.
The fabulist “tiny incident” is nothing compared to that ‘decrepit intellectual’ Kristol.
The war is the ‘n’ word.
I still stand behind my “pathetic and sad” verdict on this mess as I don’t think anyone particularly cares or reads TNR very much. Even now TNR is in the last death throes of “fake but accurate” defense being tossed out as they get surrogates like Andrew Sullivan or Chait to do their rhetorical fighting for them. If that isn’t sad and pathetic, what is? The only thing missing from this spectacle is an appearance from Lucy Ramirez