The Hack Gap In Action

In yet more evidence that the Left suffers from a terrible hack gap, I just can't get myself worked into a braying frenzy over the fact that some self-styled cowboy has been lying to The National Review about the situation in Beirut. But I should be able to! After all, the magazine was made aware of these lies abut six weeks ago, did nothing, but continued to assail The New Republic over the Scott Beauchamp. More upsetting is the magazine's decisions to explain their errors by saying, basically, "Arabs are crafty." Lopez quotes o e of her sources saying, "The Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate about enemies is alive and well among pro-American Lebanese Christians as much as it is with the likes of Hamas.”

Us Lefties will attack them for that, but Lopez knows perfectly well that it's a strong defense for the constituency she cares about: Her subscribers. To be fooled by lying Arabs is forgivable. Indeed, it sort of adheres to a higher level of truth than the actual story: In the conservative firmament, the untrustworthiness of Arabs exists on a far higher plane than some individual anecdotes, and if this smaller embarrassment provides more proof of that grander truth, well, no sense getting hung up on minor details. It's disgusting stuff. Imagine if The New Republic has responded to the Beauchamp affair by saying that soldiers lie, and there's really no way to check the information from such bloodthirsty sociopaths.