Getting caught up in a blog swarm on a particular topic can be hazardous. The very fact that so many are writing about the same thing can generate its own momentum, its own “narrative.” Each succeeding blogger who writes about the subject feels compelled to attach just a little more meaning, a little more importance to the story until the original subject has been blown so far out of proportion that it becomes lost amidst the cacophony of dramatic “revelations” and “gotchya” moments.
It is a phenomena of our media that continues to make us look like a bunch of idiots. Dissecting a topic until the short hairs are showing solves nothing, reveals nothing except our contempt for proportionality and the truth. Is it any wonder real reporters and editors are a little perplexed when they observe something like the outburst that accompanied Jill Carroll’s release from captivity or the huge to do over the Jeff Gannon episode?
Regarding Scott Beauchamp, everyone take a step back, inhale deeply (put the bong DOWN first), and let’s look at what the blogs hath wrought.
Blogs have exposed a military fabulist in Scott Beauchamp. His lies did not contribute to a lessening of war fervor among the American people. George Bush, the Pentagon, the left, and the Iraqi government have all seen to that little detail, thank you. Nor did Beauchamp’s fairy tales embolden al-Qaeda, the insurgents, the Iranian backed militias, or any of the other bloody minded, murderous thugs who are making Iraq a living hell for the people there. And while Beauchamp’s fibbing did not do the reputation of the military any good, Jesse Spielman and his 4 compatriots, the soldiers just convicted of raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi girl and her family, harmed that reputation on a scale that poor little Scotty Beauchamp and his stories of dog killing and teasing disfigured women could never approach in a million years.
This is the reality outside of Blogdom. Exposing Beauchamp was a good thing, don’t get me wrong. But holding TNR and their soon to be ex-editor Franklin Foer to account for their laziness, their bias, and their incompetence is enough. That and putting a poultice on the black eye Beauchamp deliberately gave the military is all the victory that blogs can claim in this matter.
Decloaking Beauchamp will not bring us closer to “victory” in Iraq – if such a thing existed outside of the fevered imaginations of an ever dwindling number of conservatives. It will not make up for Abu Ghraib – another story whose perceived importance far, far outweighed any relationship to the reality of what actually happened. It will not induce the American people to change their minds and embrace the war effort. Nor will it shut the left up which, while something devoutly to be desired, is alas an effort doomed to failure.
This medium, we have to keep reminding ourselves, is still fairly new. And as more and more people enter the blog universe – many looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – it is inevitable that they too, wish to get in on the fun of scalp hunting. One way to climb up the winding stairs to the top of the ziggurat is to outshout your competitors while attaching more importance to a story than it deserves. This will get you traffic, links, and the admiration of your fellow bloggers.
I understand the game. I’ve played it for three years, shamelessly piling on and then shooting off emails to big bloggers hoping they would find my insightful, pithy comments about the swarm du jour good enough to link. There’s nothing inherently dishonest in this method of self-promotion – unless what you write isn’t what you truly feel in which case you won’t last long anyway. But I truly believe now that blogs have to move beyond this phase. To what end, I have no idea. I couldn’t have foreseen where blogs are now 3 years ago when I started so my powers of prognostication when it comes to blogging and internet media are practically nil.
I only know a growing sense of unease elicited by the notion that by overhyping stories like the Beauchamp caper, the credibility of the medium suffers. For that reason alone, it may be time to put down the blood stained hatchets and begin to seriously examine just what we should be doing that will increase our influence rather than make us look like a bunch of one dimensional attack dogs.
8:21 am
Actually, if it’s all the same to you, I’m pretty comfy being a “one-dimensional attack dog”!
9:38 am
The Obligatory Beauchamp Post…
I have not written about the Scott Beauchamp/New Republic story for a couple of reasons. First, I do not have any personal knowledge of the specifics of Beauchamp’s claims; the milbloggers have handled that aspect of the story well. Second…...
9:41 am
When I look at these stories and other things being done by the MSM and other sources, like the AQI/insurgent sniper videos run at the NYT website and CNN, or the actual lack of understanding about a subject, like the criticism of the WaPo on the rebuilding effort in Iraq last year that misses the key concept of ‘Federal fiscal year in budgeting’, my problem is not with the pieces, per se, but with the abysmally low ethics of the reporters, editors and everyone in the ‘loop’ of control at those publications.
As a lone blogger I try to ensure that my readers have articles that can be backed up and I give extensive quotes and links so that they can decide for themselves if I am giving them the ‘real deal’. With the Reuters problem of last year I put together a series of pieces on what various individuals and institutions could do so as to provide proof of their veracity and the legitimacy of their stories.
That first article covered still and motion imagery and how to work agreements with the major ‘for pay’ image hosting sites so that ALL of one’s work was available for review for a given session. That is not done by law but by photojournalists and motion imagery journalists being willing to do this thing known as ‘show all their work’. The originals are housed safely with other organizations and news editors can examine an entire run of images and actually broker for them. And when hiring on such a journalist you can get an idea of just how they compose and composite shots by ‘seeing their work’ in full. And if any question about the legitimacy of the imagery is brought up, then all of the metadata from cameras, scanners and processing programs is also available.
This then gives the evidentiary basis for a non-partisan group of image experts, analysts and others in various fields to be brought together whenever problems arise with the veracity of images and their time-sequencing for events. Such a review panel could be kept on retainer or have time donated by universities and other organizations that serve as the basis of image sciences to ensure that such images were taken by such cameras in the places purported at the time given for them. This is in the interest of the MSM so as to have an outside checking system that is not composed of journalists but those with forensic skills necessary to find if what has been imaged is correct.
We are heading into an era where fabrication of 3D scenes will move very quickly in the next few years onto our desktops at a reasonable price. Without such organizations working hard to ensure the legitamacy of such images that will be rendered from them. The still imagery folks warned about this in the mid-1990’s and now the 3D community is giving similar warning signals.
The print/text media do not escape this, as we have seen, and the cure is to ‘show all work’. When digital storage was expensive, that was difficult, but that is no longer the case and releasing source documents and interviews days or at most weeks after a story is released should be satisfactory to demonstrate that proper editorial oversight and review has taken place with stories. For lone individuals, such as myself, I do my best to put up the links and text and have even started to use online notebooks so that even more of that is available to go through. There is no replacement for showing the foundation of one’s writing and the era of ‘limited column space’ and ‘expensive storage media’ are no longer excuses for full and open access to source documents and historical archives of same to be opened up to the public. Protection of ‘anonymous sources’ is something that can be done by having redaction of names and full names held not just by the journalist but by the editorial board(s) involved at publications.
Finally, however, there are some areas where I feel that the ethics of MSM organizations have stepped over the line of legality during reporting on wars. The Treaties signed by the US and any Nation involved with such multi-lateral Treaties are in full force upon those collecting, editing and disseminating information. The ‘freedom of the press’ is a subordinate part of ‘freedom of speech’ and is fully accountable to the laws put in place to restrict coverage of events via Treaty. Primary restrictions are put on by the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the restrictions are not onerous, but rigorous. One of the main ones that I have had extreme feelings on is the publication of those sniper kill videos shot by ‘insurgents’ or AQI and released to the press which immediately puts them out. That is a direct violation of allowing governments due time to find out who was killed and properly contact family and next of kin and publish such names afterwards. It also shows NO respect for the recently killed and that is a paramount part of wartime: respect for the dead is enforced at all times and places, and the press has severe limitation on what can and cannot be immediately shown. This is not just lack of ethics, but crossing over into the Nation State Treaty concept which we hold ourselves accountable to via the US Code and other Nations by their Nation’s civil criminal code. My view on the TNR publication was not on the truth or lack of same, but the lack of ethics and breaking of the US Code by the publication of such material.
Apparently, holding folks accountable to the actual Treaties negotiated for warfare and the EXACT SAME ONES they resort to so as to bash others is something that is just not done and are all just ‘political’ in nature. That is not ‘equal enforcement of the law’ without regard to race, religion, color or politics.
I a not worried, overmuch, by the whistleblowers crying ‘foul’.
I am extremely worried that the freedom of speech no longer has ANY limits upon it and that common laws held between the citizenry can be broken for political need at no cost. That is not the road to a civilization holding up equal enforcement of the law as its standard. That is heading down the road to authoritarianism and totalitarianism and the miasma of Orwellian speech where any word means just exactly what you want it to mean and nothing else… until it is changed yet again… and again… and mere words are meaningless.
10:04 am
Yes, but at the end of the day, You are as gullible and naive as Barack if your take-away is simply a fact-checking episode. Or that the systematic lying as practiced by the Left & its pilot-fish losers will eventually be outted.
Franklin Foer should go because of this Steven Glass follow-up, but exaggeration and hyperbole and concoctions are as prevalent as leaking classified information when it comes to the MSM & its leftist bias. Someone called the Beauchamp folderol “pre-traumatic stress disorder,” and it went right into Foer’s left-wing frontal-lobe circuitry without a single limbic fact-check. TNR rivals the New Yorker for its witless commentary & lack of fact-checking. Serial hack Hendrick Hertzberg mis-spelled “Saudia Arabia[sic]” and got away with it in TNY. Hertzberg e-mailed me to dispute an earlier factual mis-statement of his in TNY, then did the “Saudia Arabia” dodo-move.
Not in itself a big deal, but symbolic of how the Kool-Ade drinking nutroots who simply get it wrong as an entitlement of their Bolshevik heritage. Looks like hanging with the Kossacks at the McCormick Place has given you a slight dose of co-optation.
10:09 am
thanks for the reality check.
10:12 am
Dave:
My only real point is that looking at the big picture out side of Blogworld, this doesn’t move anything. It’s an “inside blog” story that bores everyone else to death and might rate a story or two in the Times and WaPo but that’s it.
Sometimes, we take ourselves too seriously, don’t you think?
10:18 am
[...] Rick Moran offers a cautionary note, to which I respond by re-linking Bryan Preston on why military bloggers care. [...]
10:22 am
Rick,
I think you are missing half of the point of these blog swarm exercises. Rememer all the fauxtography stuff around the Lebabanon war? You can bet that the net result of the embarassment of the
10:24 am
Rick,
I think you are missing half of the point of these blog swarm exercises. Rememer all the fauxtography stuff around the Lebabanon war? You can bet that the net result of the embarassment of the wire services is that they will be much more vigilant about stronger photos than they used to be. You can bet that (at least for a while) that publications will persue more fact checking for any story coming from a diarist in Iraq.
10:26 am
On the contrary, bringing such nonsense to the attention of the American people whenever we can is a good thing, if for no other reason than to encourage them to not believe all the negatives(often untrue)about Iraq that they are bombarded with on a daily basis. Maybe if more outing of nonsense like this had been done in the beginning, there would be more support for the war today.
Instead, a lot nonsense goes unchallenged, and people form their opinion of the war based on said nonsense.
10:30 am
Clark/Kevin:
I don’t dispute what you say at all. It isn’t that what is being done isn’t valuable – it is the way it is being done that is harmful to blogs.
Is there a better way? Don’t know. Never tried one. But to be aware of the problem is the first step toward solving it.
10:41 am
Rick,
You make a good argument against fevered blogging packs tearing at the lastest news bone, but I see some value to the righty posters arming themselves with farm implements and storming the monster’s castle. Sure, it’s not pretty, but it’s useful.
The physical battlefied of Iraq may be far away but the decisive battlefield of the media is here in America. Our enemies have learned that they can break our will to fight through propaganda published with the help of their friends and sympathizers in the media. During Fidel’s attack on Cuba and the North Vietnamese attack on the South, the propaganda of the enemy went far to convince many Americans that the Communists were the good guys, defusing resistance to them. This same strategy is continued in the leftist media which is reflexively anti-American.
So I see some value in the piranha-like swarming over a bogus story by bloggers, picking its bones clean and then going after the author and publisher. It delivers pain to the propagandists, introduces risk to lying where there was no risk before. Such swarming punishes the lefty propagandists, discredits the MSM, and suppresses further propaganda.
10:42 am
[...] Others posting on this topic: Bill’s Bites / Protein Wisdom / The Fighting GOP / The Fighting GOP / Cao’s Blog / Getting Paid to Watch / Instapundit / Mark Steyn / John Podhertz / Bill Quick / Cadillac Tight / Confederate Yankee / Lifelike Pundits / Flopping Aces / Power Line / Law Hawk / Patterico / Little Green Footbals / Gay Patriot / Ross Douthat / Rick Moran / Don Surber [...]
10:42 am
Don’t Get Cocky, Kids:...
Some words of caution regarding the lessons to take from the Beauchamp-The New Republic fiasco: Rick Moran @ Right Wing Nut House and Ed Morrissey @ Captain’s Quarters…....
10:43 am
Heh. Love your imagery Tantor.
11:10 am
Mr. Moran:
As usual, a level-headed, informative post. I’d say well done again, but frankly I’m getting tired of telling you. Do some bad work, once in a while. Just for variety.
I am chuckling at some of the comments in this thread, specifically the “gotta fight the tsunami-like wave of lies from the Left” crew. I’m opposed to lying from anybody, right or left (hell, up or down). As the hippie in the thread, I won’t defend him—if he lied, then its on him.
For the thread warriors: I completely understand your anger. Somebody lying to you to try and influence the course or opinions of the war is reprehensible. As I mentioned in the Gonzales post, my image of Rightie/Conservative presumes a somewhat violent reaction to lies and manipulation. Thank god the thread warriors have found the culprit: a blogger. Now, with all of the liars out of the way, we can finally see how successful the war is really going. Must have been hard for the Administration all this time—I mean, they’ve got press briefings, leaks to the MSM, talk show tours, and the Evil Left has bloggers. Poor Dubya. How can a Decider possibly get the True Word out, when he’s so woefully underpowered? Shame. No wonder people think things are going to hell there . . . so many lies.
11:11 am
Beauchamp is not the story. TNR’s abysmal standards in publishing him is the story. And TNR is not the blogosphere.
Focusing on Beauchamp is saucy, but it misses the real real story, which is TNR’s malfeasance. Holding their feet to the fire is a public service and the blogosphere is accomplishing that. In short, we fact check your ass.
11:12 am
Rick Moran Sagely Informs Us: Exposing Beauchamp’s Fables Has Not—Repeat, Not—Secured The Victory In Iraq…
Stop the presses! Trolling for an Instalink, and writing the sort of contrarian piece that he hopes will get linked for balance—no matter how stupid that “balance” is—Rick Moran resorts to the crude claims of the…...
11:15 am
Thank god the thread warriors have found the culprit: a blogger.
The New Republic is not a blog. It’s supposed to be a reputable publication. It’s been in the news business for 93 years. It is dinosaur media. It should be respectable. When it does things like this, which it has done before, it is not.
11:27 am
Yeah, Rick, we do get high sniffing our own flatulence from time to time, But someone has got to prick the gaseous balloons the MSM hoists every day, that “gonfalon bubble” of the Tinker-Evers-Chance ditty that keeps the Giants and their NYC/LA axis of agitprop pumping air. [metaphor alert]
I gake your point, and now I restrict myself mainly to commenting on others’ blogs rather than concoct my own redundant blather.
11:35 am
Hey Rick, great article, but I’m going to take a position half way between you and Tantor. In order to prevent the blogshpere from becoming irrelevant we must show caution regarding which stories we give the piranha treatment.
That said however the only way of wresting the founding father of this great nations belief in the necessity and value of the press away from the propagandists is to hold their feet to the fire of reality.
Our founding fathers would never have believed that a press free from the heavy hand of government oppression could or would ever adopt a ideology contrary to that espoused in our constitution.
In fact they believed that a free press was essential to the stability of the republic that they sacrificed so much to bring into existence. They believed this so much that they articulated this very idea into our constitution, that congress should under no circumstances abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
What they never in their wildest dreams counted on was the press by virtue of their own self inflated ego’s becoming a elitist organization that believed they knew what was better for the country than its poor unwashed uneducated ignorant masses.
Never could Benjamin Franklin Alexander Hamilton or James Madison have imagined a press that would adhere to and push a political ideology that was the complete antithesis of the democratic republic that they established.
Thus while we in the blogsphere must show caution to avoid becoming a irrelevant and discredited voice, we must also shine a brutal and piercing light on the despicable ideology being espoused and pushed as propaganda by the established media.
We must be nimbler more agile farther reaching and tireless if we are to have any relevance other than our own self congratulatory ego’s.
11:36 am
@Pablo:
True, and I was being overly snarky. I lost respect for the MSM after the NYTimes Plame fiasco. Remeber the good old days, when reporters searched for verifiable facts, and publishers and editors reviewed the substance to make sure it was reliable? Christ, all this makes me feel old.
11:36 am
You are a clueless, dickless wonder. Of course putting TNR in its place will not win the actual battle in Iraq – but it is a part of the battle of ideas here at home. After two or more years of farting around in the dark, the Administration finally has a plan and a general with some real chance of success (defined as creating an Iraq that is generally hostile to Al Queada and will not degenerate into genocide the minute we leave), but the left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) have themselves started a “surge” to kill the current momentum here at home. Apparently you are on-board with that, since you also seem to buy the meme that Abu Ghraib was the most important event in the war? Yes, it was quite a scoop for the media to report leaks from the investigation which the Army had laready commenced. It got better when the media decided to embrace the incompetent and disgraced former general who was the flag officer most immediately responsible for the prison because she was willing to parrot the standard anti-Bush line – and you’re cool with that too? Have you considered changing the name of this site?
11:38 am
Rick,
Great job last night on O’Reilly. Wear a tie from now on- sadly, things like that add credibility. Hope to see more of you on the political TV circuit.
11:41 am
#23
Read the post again. This time, wear your glasses, please.
11:45 am
Rick,
The goal wasn’t to score some kind of military victory. Obviously, it doesn’t. The TNR articles made our military look like sick, uncaring fools. The articles were false, created by a very Liberal soldier with an agenda. The point was to fact-check the articles. It was discovered they were wrong.
Should we not have questioned such horrible accusations against our military?
11:47 am
Glasses? Hell, even with binoculars there is not real point to this post, beyond blatant link-whoring, capitalizing on you momentary quasi-fame from YKos and attempting to look like a “reasonable” conservative. Seriously, what is the message? Put the bong down? Don’t be too happy that you stuffed TNR?
Maybe you are correct – this post may be less offensive than I first thought, but it is even more vacous.
11:48 am
Wow Rick, you really made Ace mad.
My only real point is that looking at the big picture out side of Blogworld, this doesn’t move anything. It’s an “inside blog†story that bores everyone else to death and might rate a story or two in the Times and WaPo but that’s it.
Sometimes, we take ourselves too seriously, don’t you think?
I agree with you to a point. While it is true that the only people who really care about this story is the blog world,TNR, and the military, isn’t the military and the TNR angle very important? I mean if this hadn’t been exposed, then Beauchamp’s stories would be liberal fodder for years to come. It might have gotten a pulitzer, for God’s sake.
Isn’t it important to not let the MSM distort and denigrate our military? Especially since we finally have the power to do so???
No, this won’t help us win the war in Iraq, it will just maybe keep the MSM from helping us lose it.
11:49 am
[...] So yeah, long story short, Scotty was a liar and full of hot air. There’s so much being said about it in the blogosphere that I think links provide the best context possible. Everyone has a take. However, here is something to remember from Right Wing Nut House: Getting caught up in a blog swarm on a particular topic can be hazardous. The very fact that so many are writing about the same thing can generate its own momentum, its own “narrative.†Each succeeding blogger who writes about the subject feels compelled to attach just a little more meaning, a little more importance to the story until the original subject has been blown so far out of proportion that it becomes lost amidst the cacophony of dramatic “revelations†and “gotchya†moments. [...]
11:58 am
In this conflict and others the line between winning and loosing is often blurred by national perception. Publishing lies and fabrications has no positive affect on that perception. Liars and their publishers must be called out and exposed. If the private wishes to produce fiction let him and TNR label it as such.
11:59 am
The physical battlefied of Iraq may be far away but the decisive battlefield of the media is here in America.
This fallacy is why we are losing!
12:12 pm
This fallacy is why we are losing!
Guess again.
12:13 pm
Obviously, this post from Moron is the article that will finally secure victory in Iraq!
After all, what is the point of pursuing minor stories and soaking in them when it won’t win the victory? So clearly this story MUST be the one that wins the war and brings vitory.
Right? Moron? Otherwise why did you write it? What would the point be?
Duhhhhhhhh…right Stevie. And I think the last time someone called me a Moron was a little girl in seventh grade.
Congrats, you’ve made the big time.
Ed.
12:21 pm
You are more than welcome to leave the exact same comment I just deleted if you remove the obscenities.
12:21 pm
Rick, you write a good blog and have generally laudable sensibilities, but I think your take on this is a bit off. Nobody – and I mean nobody – is claiming or thinking that “winning” the Beauchamp story is the equivalent of “winning” the war effort, or even contributing to it indirectly. That’s not what it was about for people like me, or Ace Of Spades, or Allahpundit. What it was about, as others have said, was a liberal dinosaur media publication allowing deeply suspect writer (married to a staff writer) post transparently questionable reports from Iraq…because it fit a preferred narrative. And then when they were called upon to finally research and check the stories, they actually engaged in a COVER-UP: deceived, inveigled, and obfuscated. This isn’t an “Iraq” story, per se, though that’s obviously the context. It’s a media story, and as bloggers this is something that should interest us all. As to how the blogs went about their debunking here, how is it any different from the way they attacked Rathergate?
Furthermore – and I’m surprised that this point drew no comment from you at all in the post – this story has added relevance because the publication in question is TNR. We all saw Shattered Glass, and read stories about how the Stephen Glass affair supposedly rocked TNR on its heels and initiated a sea-change in how they source and report their stories. (This was Ace’s most frequently-returned to trope, after all: the repeated parodies of the great line from that film where Glass says “Are you mad at me, Charles? Why won’t you talk to me?”)
12:25 pm
Rick wrote:
It will not make up for Abu Ghraib – another story whose perceived importance far, far outweighed any relationship to the reality of what actually happened.
Which might just as easily suggest that had bloggers effectively swarmed the MSM on that story, it might have been seen in a more accurate proportion today.
As Rightwingsparkle points out, it does prevent the Beauchamp fables from becoming part of the antiwar narrative for decades to come. It helps prevent the image of our troops from becoming amrginally worse. And it may cause others in the media to be more careful before falling into their Vietnam template, which ultimately requires a Winter Soldier-esque smearing of our military—something which had awful effects for the US long after Vietnam was over.
I also find it odd that Rick isn’t sure what “the next phase” is. He is surely aware of Ms. Malkin’s Vents from Iraq, not to mention embeds like Michael Yon, Bill Roggio, Michael J. Totten, BillINDC, etc.
However, even thinking of original content as “the next phase” can be somewhat misleading. That some bloggers will move into original content of one sort or another by no means requires the abandonment the role of other bloggers as media watchdogs, even if Rick is tiring of that role. And apparently tired enough of it that “fake but accurate” seems more palatable to him. Because that is the thrust of his point about this not affecting “victory” in Iraq. If there are only a few conservatives left who believe in “victory” in Iraq, Rick should feel no need to condescend to them. Nor should he need to insult the rest by lumping them in with the Polyannas.
Perhaps blogswarming has its own vice of inflating the importance of episodes of MSM negligence or malice. OTOH, it seems likely that TNR —or the NYT or ABCNews or Howie Kurtz—would have simply ignored it absent the blogswarm. If the media took the complaints of its core consumers more seriously, the quality of the MSM and blogs would likely improve.
12:25 pm
Arrghh…didn’t finish my post in #35 before I accidentally hit “post.” Anyway:
We know about TNR’s famous past (made into a Hollywood movie, fer chrissakes!) about fabrication in their magazine. Therefore the surly refusal to acknowledge that they, once again, have gotten snookered here – and this time in a much more politically explosive context – is what triggered outrage on the part of many bloggers.
To say that l’affair Beauchamp is ultimately minor in the context of the War is to miss point. Of course it is. But it is NOT minor in the context of The New Republic’s history, or in the context of the politicized preference of mainstream media for stories which are “too good to check” because they flatter a preferred worldview. That alone is significant enough to merit blogger attention.
12:26 pm
Rick,
Fine, since obscenities appear to bother you far more than dishonesty.
My interest in this story lies primarily in seeing this lying little $*&$#bird and the people who granted his lies credibility by airing them under the banner of journalism get their richly deserved comeuppance
I #*$&#$# hate liars. I love it when they are exposed. I love it even more when those who elbow their way through life harming others with their ugly deceptions and smears are themselves harmed by the simple unearthing of the truth. Poetic justice. Karma. The way the world outta #*%&##$ work every time if it weren’t so $#*%&&#@ up.
You’d think there wouldn’t be a single blogger on the right who wouldn’t raise clenched fist in satisfaction of the knowledge that, at least this once, a lying scumbag has been foiled from besmirching the character of men far more honorable than he.
You’d think.
12:28 pm
P.S. Rick,
Please link the bloggers who were claiming that exposing Beauchamp/TNR’s lies would lead to victory in Iraq. A few direct quotes will do.
Thanks in advance.
12:31 pm
Cite the blogs that your overall premise is based on. This is one of the poorest blog postings I’ve ever seen from you. You are beginning to take yourself way too seriously, me thinks. As for swarming, how else are a few blogs to get the word out about anything when they face a MSM that has virtually unlimited ink and airtime? Do you think if only one blog had complained about little Scotty’s diatribe anyone else would have even noticed?
12:34 pm
Rick,
We’re waiting for your response. Please link the bloggers that claimed exposing TNR’s lies would magically make for a U.S. win in Iraq. (Patiently strumming fingers on desk).
12:48 pm
Rick,
Cleaning up my obscenity won’t get us closer to victory in Iraq.
Just so you know…
12:49 pm
Also, striking pork-laden earmarks from spending bills won’t balance the budget.
Just sayin’.
12:50 pm
Convicting OJ wouldn’t have ended murder. I don’t know why everyone was so upset that he walked.
12:50 pm
I’m thinking I’ll just stay home from work today. One day of work isn’t going to make me rich.
12:52 pm
A rare dose of sanity from the right. Good show, Rick.
The really great irony here is that the dishonesty through exaggeration and outright making-stuff-up that we have seen in the RW blogs far exceeds anything that Beauchamp did.
They claimed that TNR was part of this vast left-wing conspiracy to denigrate the troops, ignoring the obvious truth that TNR was a fervent supporter of the war for a long time, and even today takes a pro-surge position – hardly the blood lines of knee-jerk military-bashers.
They also claimed that the dreaded “left” is just salivating over any opportunity to denigrate the troops. Ignoring the fact that there has been NOT ONE posting, or even comment that any of us has seen trying to draw derogatory conclusions from the rape and murder convictions of some soldiers. Apparently the “left” needs to believe that some soldiers will taunt an injured woman, but a conviction, in military court, of soldiers for rape and murder somehow isnt seen as good ammo for this fight that the left is supposedly making.
The credibility of these RW thugs is about as low as it is possible to get. How many countless things have they been wrong about?
How can they, with a straight face, try to apply a standard to TNR that they never apply to themselves, that they wouldnt come within a million miles of meeting themselves?
1:06 pm
[...] Rick Moran is going to catch hell from the patriots for this post. [...]
1:09 pm
Tano:
Who is “they?” They say this and they say that.
Name names. Give examples.
I don’t see your generalities as being any different than my critics.
1:20 pm
[...] At least Rick Moron understands the significance of what is at stake. Rick knows that in the “bigger picture” any soldier who wants to explain what they’ve seen has been silenced. Rick understands that the ReichWingNutters have abandoned the troops they claim to support and aligned themselves with Stalin, Hitler and Kim Jong Il. Rick knows that every time another pitiful excuse for a blogger tries to explain to their reader(s) that “Shock Troops” is a farce another battle in Iraq is lost. Rick sees the bigger picture, Rick learned a long time ago that the truth will set you free and that Knowledge is Half the Battle. [...]
1:47 pm
Rick –
I know you posted at the exact same time as I did (#37, 39), so maybe you didn’t see what I wrote. But I’d be interested in your thoughts. Because to me that’s the most relevant part of this story – basically it’s a minor (emphasis on minor, keep in mind) variation on the same larger themes as Rathergate: a story too good to check; a story where even a modicum of typical skepticism would have rang alarm bells, but which passes by due to prejudices of the editors; a bitter retrenchment in the face of substantive blogospheric critique (especially from milbloggers); an investigation which clearly seems to have a desperate search for vindication rather than an attempt to get at the truth; sullen refusal to acknowledge error, and in fact perhaps outright lying or fudging of the results of the re-reporting effort; battening down the hatches.
In other words, all the stereotypical hallmarks of arrogant “old media” behavior. No wonder the right-blogosphere got worked up about it. It’s not about justifying the Iraq war – again, who on earth except maybe some nutjob commenter here or there said that? – it’s about ripping the hide off of TNR, an organization that seriously should know better by now.
1:48 pm
Rick, on discrediting the war: “His lies did not contribute to a lessening of war fervor among the American people. George Bush, the Pentagon, the left, and the Iraqi government have all seen to that little detail, thank you.”
One of these things (George Bush, the Pentagon, the left, the Iraqi government) is not like the others. Can you identify it? Hint – it would be that which did not have power.
1:51 pm
Barry:
Are you really trying to say that the absolute hammering on the war and the legitimacy (not the credibility) of the Bush Administration by the left over the last 4 years hasn’t done damage to American morale?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
1:55 pm
[...] In its second major journalistic scandal in the past 10 years, TNR is taking it in the chops for publishing several installments of what was billed as a diary of an American soldier, pseudonymed Scott Thomas, in Iraq that, at best, was exaggerated and didn’t fully disclose details and circumstances, or, at worst, was a complete falsehood. Here is the latest on this (and yes, I realize this story is not from an objective source, as Weekly Standard will do about anything to convince us that the war in Iraq is going just peachy — hich it’s not). Here’s USA Today’s report, and memeorandum and Rightwing Nuthouse and The Atlantic Online on what a right-wing overkill this all is. Good analysis by Shakesville, too. [...]
2:00 pm
Sometimes after my wife cleans the kitchen, I remind her that her efforts have not made the entire house clean, nor will that kitchen stay clean forever.
She appreciates these pearls of wisdom.
2:04 pm
I was watching some neighborhood kids play hoops the other day when one of them made an amazing behind-the-back shot.
I strolled over, clasped my hands in front of me and pointed out in my most fatherly tone that one great shot wasn’t going to guarantee the shooter an NBA career.
Sure, none of them had expressed this thought, but I find it important to be the voice of reason on these matters.
2:37 pm
Well, that’s just a darn good post. I could quibble over bits – but why bother?
From someone who’s given you a fair amount of sh*t in the past – well done.
2:41 pm
Rick
Shouldn’t the question be, rather than has the Left damaged morale (a question I’d pose differently), was the Left correct to question the legitimacy of the war in the first place.
It seems even you’d say “Yes” to that.
3:03 pm
[...] Update: If you missed the flame war I linked in the headlines between Rick Moran and Ace, now’s your chance. Moran’s argument is reminiscent of (but distinct from) the nonsense Boehlert floated last year during Jamilgate and which Yglesias dusted off a week or two ago for this story — namely, that because worse things have happened in Iraq, it doesn’t really matter whether Beauchamp’s telling the truth. The parallel’s close enough that it’s worth quoting what I wrote in December: [Boehlert] doesn’t care if the story’s bogus or not. He’ll say en passant that he does because he knows, as a journalist and media critic, that he has to. But it’s strictly pro forma. His position seems to be that the story’s true in the Larger Sense, as a microcosm of the brutality in Iraq, even if it’s not, you know, technically true (”as if an AP retraction would change a thing on the ground in Baghdad, where electricity remains scarce, but sectarian death squads roam freely”). In other words, “fake but accurate.†That’s his bottom line here and that’s why it’s dishonest of him and his pals to even pretend to care whether the report’s accurate. As far as they’re concerned, if Jamil Hussein turns out to be real, the story’s true; if he turns out not to be real, the story’s True. They can’t go wrong. Meanwhile the AP, if it’s guilty of bad facts to whatever greater or lesser degree, gets an almost completely free pass. [...]
3:23 pm
TNR Responds to Beauchamp Report…
And I’m back just in time to find this from The Plank:We’ve talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account as detailed in our statement. When we called Army…
3:26 pm
[...] UPDATE: Rick Moran has a good posting that provides a great reality check over the whole Beauchamp saga and tends to confirm my opinion that outing him was good, but the gloating over it is getting over done. Over at Neocon News they have a hilarious graphic related to the Beauchamp saga you should check out. [...]
4:13 pm
@Thom:
“Shouldn’t the question be, rather than has the Left damaged morale (a question I’d pose differently), was the Left correct to question the legitimacy of the war in the first place.”
And there the truth is. Yes, making the Admin look like lying theving dirtbags makes Americans feel bad . . . but that Dubya’s (and crew) fault. The Lewinsky scandal made Americans distrustful of their President . . . but that was Clinton’s fault for banging the intern then lying, not the fault of Linda Tripp for keeping the evidence.
4:29 pm
Awesome article! I worry that we are forgetting end game on the right. Is our goal really to beat opposers into the ground? Or is it to logic others to our side?
4:47 pm
Rick, I missed O’Reilly last night, but trust you did a better job on commentating than your brother Terry. Hope you become a regular as your common-sensical take on the weirdness abroad in our land is sorely needed on the BIG TUBE.
4:56 pm
The really great irony here is that the dishonesty through exaggeration and outright making-stuff-up that we have seen in the RW blogs far exceeds anything that Beauchamp did.
Yeah, the leftwing blogs never do that. snort They win the blue ribbon on that one, I’m afraid. No comparison.
They claimed that TNR was part of this vast left-wing conspiracy to denigrate the troops.
Who said that?? I am regular reader of the “rightwing” blogs and I have never seen this assertion. The only thing I have seen is that the left claims to support the troops, yet always seems to find satisfaction in stories such as Beauchamps.
How can they, with a straight face, try to apply a standard to TNR that they never apply to themselves
uhhh…maybe because WE AREN’T JOURNALISTS. Blogging is what it is. Opinion and more opinion. Of course the standard is different for a magazine or newspaper..Good grief.
5:00 pm
I just want the truth, not hype, not lies.
Take for instance the story about the March 23, 2003, capture in Iraq of Pvt. Jessica Lynch. Henry Waxman’s House Oversight Committee recently investigated this story (along with the Pat Tilman episode) concentrating on Ms. Lynch and the Pentagon and White House PR surrounding the “legend” status of Ms. Lynch.
The basis of Ms. Lynch’s legend came from an unknown “official” used by Susan Schmidt and Vernon Loeb of the Washington Post. “Several†other “officials†cautioned that the facts weren’t yet known, and “Pentagon officials†said reports of Lynch’s gun-firing heroics were only “rumors.â€
House Oversight skipped over the fact that there was no hyping press from either the White House or Pentagon, as Rep. Waxman left the “urban legend” of their propaganda remain intact. As to the sloppy reporting by The Washington Post, Schmidt and Loeb were never called to talk about their ‘heroic adventure’ story that got all the other inaccurate reports going.
5:46 pm
Neo
The WH and the Pentagon put out the first reports about Lynch “fighting until she was out of bullets.” There was susequent hyping by the press, but good God, don’t give the Pentagon a pass. They waited weeks to refute the hero story officially – just like with Tillman, only uglier becauser they lied to his family – and the WaPo was one of the papers questioning the story before they came clean.
6:57 pm
T
No they didn’t. Take a look at the record, not your memory. There are no press releases by either the White House or the Pentagon to that effect. It was all based on Schmidt and Loeb’s fairy tale. There was nothing from the White House and the Pentagon kept saying “the facts weren’t yet known” and there were “rumors.”
7:15 pm
[...] Let me show you why. The title is “BLOGS MISSING THE REAL STORY AS USUAL” and then the first two paragraphs are: Getting caught up in a blog swarm on a particular topic can be hazardous. The very fact that so many are writing about the same thing can generate its own momentum, its own “narrative.†Each succeeding blogger who writes about the subject feels compelled to attach just a little more meaning, a little more importance to the story until the original subject has been blown so far out of proportion that it becomes lost amidst the cacophony of dramatic “revelations†and “gotchya†moments. [...]
7:39 pm
Not Quite The Last Word On ScottScam…
TNR’s editorial process is badly flawed, and in running this series, they not only got more than they bargained for, but besmirched the US Army based on the fabrications of a soldier who was provided an unfettered outlet for his fictionalized account….
9:44 pm
I think that pretty much says it all Rick, Tano congratulating you, Ace of Spades flaming you….
10:19 pm
With all respect, Rick, blogs are by definition reactionary. We react to what is out there. The bottom line here is that all this “piling on” that you’re talking about, that occurred in the Beauchamp case, was a large number of people reacting correctly to being lied to. It’s the kind of thing that lease the editorial boards of newspapers, if not the news staff, used to do. Alas, they don’t do it much anymore. Which, in turn, is precisely why this new medium exists.
I don’t know how others play this particular game, Rick, but I will tell you the truth about BitsBlog; it’s very seldom indeed, then I have tried to promote one of my posts by emailing other bloggers. perhaps this explains why my hit rates are not nearly what I think they should be. The reason I haven’t done it, is it has always struck me as seeking approval from people you’re competing with.
For my part, I speak my mind, and let it go at that. I am active on other people’s Blogs for the same reason. If somebody else is going my way, that’s just fine. If not, see ya. But I notice a certain talk show host who shall remain nameless, within the studios of WSB has taken note of your efforts. That’s not a bad thing. What that notice suggests is, people are starting to take this medium seriously. But perhaps you need to study a little more closely why it is they do so… And perhaps the best way to do that, is to examine what would happen without power being here. Believe me when I tell you, there are those in government who are hitting the prayer mats every night for just such an occurrence. imagine with me, the results of taking Beauchamp at his word with no resistance. what kind of image would be sent into the minds of the average American? What kind of image would be sent into the minds of our military in the rest of the world? Trust me what I tell you that’s precisely why the article was written and printed. Make no mistake; these people are working for the other side.
It is precisely because of the incidents like this Beauchamp affair that we in Blogdom are being taken seriously. Far from such Blog Swarms being a BAD thing, I will guarantee you that going forward for the least a little while the media will take fact checking very seriously indeed. TNR got caught with their pants down on this one. Again. To the extent that my adding on my little voice to that particular pig pile help that process along, I consider it a good thing. Certainly, it is better than the absence of that kind of pressure. Glenn would call it an Army of Davids.
10:20 pm
[...] Rick: You say: Decloaking Beauchamp will not bring us closer to “victory” in Iraq – if such a thing existed outside of the fevered imaginations of an ever dwindling number of conservatives. It will not make up for Abu Ghraib – another story whose perceived importance far, far outweighed any relationship to the reality of what actually happened. It will not induce the American people to change their minds and embrace the war effort. Nor will it shut the left up which, while something devoutly to be desired, is alas an effort doomed to failure. [...]
7:47 am
Actually, perhaps a Mexican standoff in Iraq could be in the offing. The realization of the Sunni tribal leaders that AQ is a bunch of Taliban crazies has turned them back toward sanity. The only thing, the elephant in the parlor, resisting a solution is the persistent mistrust Shi’ites have of their Sunni persecutors of more than eighty years [1920-2003] and this may keep the end-game of resulution from happening.
The left is so heavily invested in defeat that it is a shibboleth/mantra in their campaign rhetoric. As in Vietnam, they may play an active role in bringing about American defeat, even though Petraeus’s strategy is beginning to get results.
1:10 pm
As Bithead suggests, blogs are reactive, often little more than individual editorial pages. This is partly why blogs are still dependent upon original news sources, which continue to cut back due to costs and, ironically, lack of sales due to net competition. TMV’s Joe Gandleman has promoted the idea of blogs are original news sources, usually interviews. (Now that I think about it, that’s something you and Ed have done with Blog Radio). Anyway, Bit’s right- blogs’ reactivity helps explain the “piling on” phenomenon, even though I agree with you that moderation in this instance is appropriately exercised.