Private Thoughts

I got an e-mail on my blog e-mail account asking if I would apologize or recant the "lies" that I was spreading by promoting the articles in The New Republic written by Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp detailing his life and experiences in fighting the war in Iraq. There's been a great deal of discussion -- some civil, a lot not -- about the accounts, with accusations of fabrication, inaccuracies, and outright deception, including attacking the author's motives and so forth. Supporters of the war claim this is another "Rather-gate" story and accuse the left of promoting "defeatism," whatever that is, and the left has responded by saying that Pvt. Beauchamp's story is the unvarnished truth that the administration doesn't want you to know about the horrors of war in general and the futility of this particular war. Needless to say, there are a lot of grains of salt going around.

According to The Weekly Standard, Pvt. Beauchamp has recanted his stories under questioning. However, I have no intention of recanting or apologizing for anything I've written regarding the story because this is the first -- and hopefully the last -- post I've written about it. I have followed the story of the story on other blogs, including Shakesville, but I have not put forth any opinions on it because I never read the original articles or paid much attention to the turdhunt that ensued to find out who "Scott Thomas" really is and the parsing of the details that were supposed to be the smoking gun that proved he was either a hero or a fraud.

There are a couple of reasons I've stayed away. First, I've been burned on stories like this before and, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't even aware of them until the kerfuffle exploded last week.

So, to whoever it was that e-mailed me, the answer is no, I won't apologize or recant, since there's nothing to apologize for or to recant. And may I be so bold as to suggest that you actually read who's writing about what instead of issuing a blanket spam to blogs that you think might have written about the Beauchamp story. That's called "fact checking," and it seems that there needs to be more of it done by a lot more people.