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October 26, 2007
Beauchamp Update
So TNR seems pretty solid on the Beauchamp thing. Not just in the sense that Beauchamp's story has yet to be disproven, and that evidence of his recantation has yet to be produced, but in that they're actually trying to figure out what's going on, and end up wherever the facts lead them. By contrast, the big news from earlier this week was that Drudge had laid hands on documents proving Beauchamp wrong, but the documents didn't do that, and Drudge soon removed them, and his story of Beauchamp, from his site -- no correction, recantation, or explanation offered. Now that's journalistic ethics.
As a general point, I don't care about Beauchamp's story. If it's false, it should be retracted. If it's true, it should be praised. What unsettles me is the methodology -- the feeding frenzy to disprove unpleasant facts by way of innuendo, random e-mail speculation, and character assassination, all of which are assembled into an overwhelming mass of "truthy claims and constant updates that offer the atmospherics of a proven case without hard evidence. It was the same thing with the Graeme Frost affair.
During the Frost affair, I got a (very respectful) e-mail from a conservative reporter asking why I objected to Malkin's reporting. Isn't this, my interlocutor said, exactly what the media should be doing? Uncovering the facts about this family?
But there's a procedure to reporting. You identify your question, you gather your facts, you check your sources, and then you offer the finished product. What you don't do is choose a target, then unleash an all-purpose call for supportive speculation, smears, rumors, pithy attack lines, pictures of the target's school, examples of the target's high school poetry, and put it all up in real time, long before you've found and checked anything that you'd be comfortable saying is The Truth. What the Right has been engaging in isn't fact-checking or reporting, but communal, speculative, character assassination. It's shameful, and to the targets, deeply cruel.
October 26, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Ohh, come now.
The Democrat left and the Clintons practically invented the art of the smear. The left long ago abandoned trying to discuss facts and decided their ideology could only survive by character assasination and tearing down the other side.
I have yet to see the left refute the facts on the Frosts. The fact that the left digs up so-called sob stories just shows they can't pass their programs on the merits, they are forced to use emotions.
When you try to argue policy with a liberal it takes about two seconds before the label you a homophobe, or a sexist, or a racist, or a bigot, or the 'bimbos' or the 'trailer trash' or the skits on SNL degrading people like Linda Tripp, etc. etc. because they don't want to argue policy.
I don't remember the consevatives doing skits on SNL denigrating people like the liberal do routinely.
So let's review:
- The Frosts qualified for the CURRENT S-CHIP Program and didn't require an expansion.
- The Frosts could have afforded healthcare insurance for their children BEFORE the accident, but it clearly was not a priority. Do you also want an S-HOUSE program so poor smokers can pay for a house for every homeowner in California who didn't buy homeowners insurance?
- The Frosts had access to assets far beyond those of most poor people (smokers) they are asking to pay for the S-CHIP expansion.
- Maryland does not asset test for S-CHIP so millionaires can qualify for the program which punishes the poor through taxation. The Frosts could have out right owned their house, owned their business, owned three SUVs, owned an Island in the carribean and half of Denmark and Maryland would still consiscate poor familes hard earned money to pay for the Frost children.
Now Conservatives for some reason just think that is wrong, liberals appear to hate the poor smokers and wanted to see them punished even if it means paying for upper middle class and rich peoples healthcare.
For some reason the left has staked its ground as government hand outs for the midle class at the expense of taxing the poor. One wonders why they want to fight on that hill.
Posted by: Patton | Oct 26, 2007 2:41:45 PM
By the way, I encourage everyone to actually read the documents regarding beauchamp. Clearly the guy was a liar and now just as clearly his lawyer has told him his best course of action is to not confirm or deny anything.
But of more interest is the investigators findings (and no the military lawyers are not a bunch of liars, they do have honor Mr. Murtha) that Beauchamps stories were fabricated and false.
Posted by: Patton | Oct 26, 2007 2:44:00 PM
Links
http://hotair.cachefly.net/mm/stb1.pdf
http://hotair.cachefly.net/mm/stb2.pdf
http://hotair.cachefly.net/mm/stb3.pdf
Posted by: Patton | Oct 26, 2007 2:56:19 PM
For Patton (since he didn't apparently get it the first time): What the Right has been engaging in isn't fact-checking or reporting, but communal, speculative, character assassination. It's shameful, and to the targets, deeply cruel.
and Patton sez: The Frosts could have out right owned their house, owned their business, owned three SUVs, owned an Island in the carribean and half of Denmark and Maryland would still consiscate poor familes hard earned money to pay for the Frost children.
[emphasis added]
But the Frosts do any of this.
Mr. Patton, have you no shame?
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Oct 26, 2007 3:02:49 PM
sorry for unclosed italics :-(
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Oct 26, 2007 3:03:40 PM
TNR's claim that 'the Army' leaked these stories to Drudge is simply silly, although someone in the Army certainly did, it is extremely unlikely that this was an institutional decision.
This would seem to qualify as pure speculation and shameful distortion of the truth, not fact checking or good reporting. I wouldn't call that 'pretty solid.'
Obviously, the person who leaked this should be punished appropriately. There are reasons for a process in this.
Posted by: Dave Justus | Oct 26, 2007 3:24:06 PM
"So TNR seems pretty solid on the Beauchamp thing"
Ezra, are you serious? If there is any entity in this sordid affair that has been discredited it's TNR. Did you actually read the interview between Foer and Beauchamp? Foer practically threatened his wife's job if he dared recant. Now Foer blames the Army and you buy it? How about a little intellectual honesty?
Posted by: JBJB | Oct 26, 2007 3:25:08 PM
One should also note that the right-wing blogosphere is not actually interested in doing any investigation or anything. As Thers pointed out, right wing bloggers simply enjoy latching on to some obsession for reasons known only to themselves and whipping their followers into a crazed, rageful fury.
For them, it's a sign that they have power, and it's a way of showing others (and those within their group) that they will "go after you" if necessary.
It's not _about_ the Frosts or Beauchamp. It's an attempt to show "we can get you" and it's a means of satisfying the deep-seated need weak-minded right-wingers have to show that they "have power." That and among their fellow conservatives, such unhinged, frothing-at-the-mouth witchunts is considered something like a "mitzvah" within republican circles.
I think we have to genuinely worry about the fact that this tendency will inevitably get turned on people we know personally by conservatives we know personally.
Posted by: Tyro | Oct 26, 2007 4:08:03 PM
The Democrat left and the Clintons practically invented the art of the smear.
Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy were pulling this stuff before Bill Clinton or Hillary Rodham could walk. Were they the "Democrat left"?
... they don't want to argue policy.
So it was Malkin who offered to debate, and Ezra who declined? 'Cuz I remember it being the other way around.
Really, you're not even trying.
Posted by: Thlayli | Oct 26, 2007 4:22:49 PM
Ezra we share two things in common. One: a deep belief in intellecual honesty. Two: you are both of our heroes. This is why I find this post so unsettling, neigh, SHOCKING TO THE VERY CORE OF MY BEING!!!
It seems that for you to imply that the entire case against the veracity of beauchamp's articles is just a plethora of "innuendo, random e-mail speculation, and character assassination" you could have at least pointed to a few examples of said "innuendo, random e-mail speculation, and character assassination". Sure, this wouldnt have made your sweeping charge against 'the right' any more intellectually honest, but it wouldve at least elevated the post to the status of having the atmospherics of intellectual honesty.
It also seems to me that in defending your criticisms of malkin you should have talked about things malkin actually did rather than things 'the right' did. I mean, did malkin post up any of frost's poetry? you couldve certainly infered that from the way the post is written, and if she didnt do that then how does mentioning that someone did butress your criticisms of malkin?
I only offer these criticisms based on my, and your, deep and sincere commitment to honest debate. You are a rare champion of truth amongst a snarling mob of inneundo spouting, email speculating, character assinating kid haters with B.O. I would hate to see you drop to their level
yours very, very, very sincerely, pimp
Posted by: pimp hand strikes! | Oct 26, 2007 4:24:25 PM
yours very, very, very sincerely, pimp
You know, the canonical "annoying right-wing concern troll" way of signing off stylistically follows the convention:
Sincerely,
Pimp P. Pimpersmith III,Esq.
Posted by: Tyro | Oct 26, 2007 4:39:44 PM
But there's a procedure to reporting. You identify your question, you gather your facts, you check your sources, and then you offer the finished product. What you don't do is choose a target, then unleash an all-purpose call for supportive speculation, smears, rumors, pithy attack lines, pictures of the target's school, examples of the target's high school poetry, and put it all up in real time, long before you've found and checked anything that you'd be comfortable saying is The Truth.
I know Ezra is young but he can't be so young as to have missed the Jeff Gannon / James Guckert imbroglio. At one point the Kossacks had managed to convince themselves (and even the Times) that Gannon had special White House access to classified documents related to the Plame case. Eventually, folks accepted the notion that Gannon had simply been reading the Wall Street Journal. (And I will let others opine on the role of the gay photos in all of this.)
My point, obviously, it that this behavior is hardly new or limited to the right, Ezra's selective memory notwithstanding.
Posted by: Tom Maguire | Oct 26, 2007 6:28:59 PM
My point, obviously, it that this behavior is hardly new or limited to the right, Ezra's selective memory notwithstanding.
He says, cherry-picking one tiny facet of the Gannon/Guckert story, when the substance was cross-checked with sources such as the White House Correspondents' Association. I'd see an optician for that plank in your eye.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Oct 26, 2007 11:40:48 PM
The point is, the wingnuttosphere does little else but this sort of vicious nonsense.
(And I will let others opine on the role of the gay photos in all of this.)
You mean the ones where he was advertising his services as a prostitute?
Posted by: Thers | Oct 26, 2007 11:54:23 PM
I agree that what Malkin and others did in the Frost case was not journalism, but rumor and smear. I also agree with what you seem to be saying here, that there would have been nothing wrong with them asking questions about Frost as long as they had followed the procedures of journalism.
But I think the last point may have been lost in posts like this one:
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/10/what-has-happen.html
in which you call the Right "sick," "twisted," "tumorous," "ugly," "savage," "ferocious," "rageful," "screaming, sobbing, inchoate hate," "shrieking, atavistic," "violent," "hateful," "vicious," "howling, braying, thirsty mobs", etc. but never mention that there would have been nothing wrong with their asking questions and writing about the Frosts if they had followed the rules of Journalism 101 (e.g. verifying things before publishing them). That left Malkin an easy out (which she took) of claiming that you were attacking her right to ask these questions at all.
I'm on your side, but next time, a little more light and less heat would be better for everybody.
Cheers,
Key
Posted by: Marius Key | Oct 26, 2007 11:57:30 PM
Well before the innuendo, accusations, etc, before blogs and the WWW, going back several wars, there was an unspoken compact among bands of buddies: What happens in war zones stays in war zones.
Many front line soldiers see ugly stuff. Some involve bloodshed between both sides. Some involve regrettable accidents. Some are iffy, just as some police conduct that gets exonerated is iffy. And some is criminal conduct.
I can't speak for pre-Vietnam eras, but soldiers who spoke out from Vietnam and after have faced rebuke. Not only is there the sense among some that tarring one soldier tarnishes all, but there's a sense that the talker 'snitched' on his buddies. And for chickenhawks, the outrage springs from the belief that every soldier has to be a hero. Any doubt of that must be destroyed or it could make war seem a little less noble and that gives ammunition to war opponents.
Beauchamp is in a precarious position. Like with Pat Tillman, an unfortunate accident could occur (and I have no way of knowing if that was accidental). He's likely not real popular with some of the guys he works with. He clearly has his superiors upset, as information control is part of the way an army fights and maintains morale.
So the truth likely won't be known till Beauchamp returns to civilian life. The Righties will howl anyways. Like some did with Kerry, some rightie vets will never let go of their anger. To them, truth isn't what's important. Maintaining that image is everything.
In reality, I don't know that they're being deliberately dishonest or whether there's some kind of cognitive dissonance going on. Whatever it is, they act like sharks around blood in their frenzied rush to find something, anything. that can destroy Beauchamp's credibility.
Most in the military are honorable people and the atrocious behaviors of some should not tarnish them. I suspect Beauchamp's story was 99% accurate, but I have no stake in it either way, so I'll await the details in a year or two. By the sounds of it, TNR has applied all the standards of ethical journalists, but I really don't know that either as I didn't follow the story back in July.
I actually prefer to let the righties do their feeding frenzy, because it keeps them distracted from lobbying on more important issues. But time has taught me the thing they hate worst are negative reports from the war zone. It's kind of Strangelovian, maintaining the myth that war has something to do with purity.
Posted by: Kevin Hayden | Oct 27, 2007 12:26:10 AM
My point, JimPortlandOr, which you fail to understand is that maryland does not do an asset test for those who request other taxpayers pay their bills. All they check is annual income for qualification.
So the Frosts could literally own the entire state of California and Maryland wouldn't care as long as they didn't report any income from it.
The point being that some of the richest, wealthiest people in the country have low annual income. If your a wage earner, you report more annual income than someone living off other means.
So yes, I do think that you shouldn't ask poor smokers to cough up (pardon the pun) more of their earned money for someone who is wealthy in terms of other assets.
I am absolutely sure if Rush Limbaugh applied for benefits you would have a complete cow...Since Rush could easily set up a compacy (EIB network) that companies pay to advertise and pay himself a nominal salary of 50,000 a year. He would then qualify for S-CHIP.
Posted by: Patton | Oct 27, 2007 11:59:38 AM
The left is completely, utterly incapable of recognizing a lie anymore for fear their house of cards will come tumbling down.
-- Can anyone on the left admit that the CBS/Dan Rather National Guard documents were clear forgeries written in Microsoft Word? This isn't even a close call. Not to mention, noone has been able to find a typewriter from 1970 and duplicate the letters, you would think the left, CBS, Rather, Mapes would have done so by now.
-- Beauchamp himself admits to lying about the IED scarred women, yet the left holds on to ever other precious lie. They still won't admit to other clearly blantant proveable lies. Beauchamp said only Iraqi police have Glocks, you can buy a Glock in any town market in Iraq for a couple hundred dollars.
Beauchamp also said you could tell a glock shell casing because they are square, another complete and utterly provable lie, Noone has been able to find a square shell casing for any glock at any time.
Posted by: Patton | Oct 27, 2007 12:08:14 PM
I think what exra doesn't comprehend is that he and others on the left got all out of shape when people questioned the Frosts ability to pay there bills.
But, it wasn't conservatives that first raised the question of who could afford things. The left happily assumed that all smokers could afford the bill they were putting on them for the S-CHIP expansion.
So, AFTER the left has already decided poorer people then the Frosts can afford to pay for the Frosts, they got mad when we suggested whatthey had already assumed of others.
Posted by: Patton | Oct 27, 2007 2:30:59 PM
If Patton could carry a consistent argument between two posts, I might not find them a troll. As it is, s/he seems to be a boring, disrputive clod, worth ignoring. Witness: attempting to turn a thread about US military behavior in Iraq into a threa about child health care.
Posted by: fishbane | Oct 27, 2007 9:26:22 PM
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