The Editor of The New Republic Franklin Foer must be feeling very lonely today. His boss, Martin Peretz, has yet to rush to his defense in the Scott Thomas controversy. The left has been skewering The New Republic for months over their criticisms of the netroots and their undue influence on the Democratic party and not surprisingly, are either questioning the Thomas stories along with their conservative blogging brethren or maintaining a pregnant silence on the matter.

Foer is maintaining a stiff upper lip and stonewalling as if his job depended on it. Come to think of it, that’s not far off the mark. Given that Foer admitted yesterday that he failed to check out the Thomas stories until questions were raised by conservative bloggers about the veracity of many of the incidents catalogued by the anonymous diarist, Foer may not be out the door as Editor quite yet. But Peretz’s silence could signal that he’s being handed his hat.

One shaky strut after another that has kept the Thomas Saga from collapsing in a heap has been yanked away by a combination of Milblogger expertise and simple common sense. Greyhawk was one of the first to weigh in with some pretty compelling evidence:

How far into The New Republic’s fabricated war story did I have to get to recognize it was a fabricated story? Answer: Not very far. Here’s the first line:

I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq.

Here’s a true war story. One late night near Baghdad, my unit’s First Sergeant and I went to the local USAF passenger terminal to pick up a newly arrived troop. Because food is important to survival and morale, the first place we took our newbie was the DFAC - the Dining Facility. (Pronounced DEEFAK with emphasis on the first syllable.) AS I said, it was late, so as we pulled into the parking area Top asked a passing soldier “Hey, what time does the chow hall close?”. His response was a blank stare, and a “huh?”. He moved closer to the vehicle.

“What time does the Chow Hall close?” The First Sergeant repeated. The soldier began to appear confused, and was unable to respond. Something clicked in my head. “He doesn’t know what a chow hall is” I said. The term is outdated, appearing now only in old war movies on TV, but Top and I are old school. “What time does the DFAC close?” Asked the First Sergeant.

“Twenty hundred hours” he replied smartly. He wasn’t being a smart ass, he was completely unfamiliar with the term “chow hall”. (By the way, it was closed, so we ate at Pizza Hut that night. I paid. War is hell.)

Small details like that have been picked out and chewed over by military or ex-military readers of many blogs. Taken separately, they are not really that compelling. But the fact that there are so many little discrepancies like the one described above – including eyewitnesses at “FOB Falcon” denying the specifics of most of Thomas’ charges and where most of the alleged bad behavior was said to have taken place by Thomas – leaves the reader wondering how Foer fell for this propaganda in the first place.

The answer, apparently, is that he wanted to. By issuing a statement yesterday in which he admitted that The New Republic failed to properly vett the story in the first place, Foer proved that he could have cared less about accuracy or truth when it came to publishing a story so damaging to the reputation of American military personnel. Either that, or he’s incompetent as an editor.

Either reason would be enough to warrant his removal. Unless Foer can come up with some credible evidence that his source is trustworthy and that at least some of the incidents reported weren’t made up out of whole cloth, The New Republic will probably be looking for another Editor very soon.