Anonymous No More

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 27, 2007 8:50 AM

The contretemps over the New Republic and its mystery Iraq diarist has blossomed into an all-out slugfest in the blogosphere.

And boy does this thing move at the speed of light. Within an hour or two after the magazine disclosed the man's identity yesterday, hordes of bloggers were up with new posts on the subject, particularly on the conservative sites, which smelled another Stephen Glass.

Whether the bloggers are right or wrong in their charges that the diarist is writing fiction, or at least embellishing reality, the way they swarm after a target has really changed the media dialogue. We saw this with Trent Lott, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan and Jeff Gannon, and we're seeing it again in spades.

Here's my report on the latest developments, followed by more blogger reaction:

The New Republic's anonymous "Baghdad Diarist" identified himself yesterday as Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private in Iraq, and disputed as "maddening" accusations that he had invented his accounts of cruelty by American soldiers.

The magazine's editor, Franklin Foer, disclosed in an interview that Beauchamp is married to a New Republic staffer, and that is "part of the reason why we found him to be a credible writer." Foer also said Beauchamp "has put himself in significant jeopardy" and "lost his lifeline to the rest of the world" because military officials have taken away his laptop, cellphone and e-mail privileges.

As both the military and the magazine investigate Beauchamp's allegations, a personal blog surfaced in which Beauchamp said last year that each morning he feels "retarded for joining the army," "a little more liberal than the day before" and "a tool for global corporations."

In a statement posted on the New Republic's Web site, Beauchamp said his columns for the magazine, written under the name Scott Thomas, were "one soldier's view of events in Iraq" and "never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. military."

"It's been maddening, to say the least," he added, "to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name."

Beauchamp did not provide any documentation for his three published columns. He is married to a reporter-researcher at the New Republic, Elspeth Reeve.

Beauchamp's writing was challenged by the Weekly Standard and conservative bloggers after he wrote vividly, and profanely, of soldiers mocking a woman disfigured by an injury, getting their kicks by running over dogs with Bradley Fighting Vehicles and playing with Iraqi children's skulls taken from a mass grave.

Foer said the magazine is attempting to confirm every detail. "We are trying to be as deliberate and meticulous as we possibly can," he said. "We're not going to be rushed into making any sort of snap judgment."

Beauchamp is a member of Alpha Company in the Army 1st Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, serving at Forward Operating Base Falcon in Baghdad. He said he did not use his full name "because I wanted to write honestly about my experiences, without fear of reprisal."

Maj. Kirk Luedeke, a spokesman for the base, said by e-mail: "We are conducting a formal investigation into the allegations made by Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp in the New Republic, so given that situation, I am unable to comment on the matter until the investigation is complete."

In his blog, called Sir Real Scott Thomas, Beauchamp quoted Vice President Cheney as explaining in 1991, when he was defense secretary, why the United States ended the Persian Gulf War without taking Baghdad. Beauchamp added that "we laugh harder at CSPAN than comedy central. Silly republicans."

Beauchamp, who was based in Germany when the blog entries were posted in 2006, described his career this way: "I shoot, move, communicate, and kill . . . the deaths that I inflict secure the riches of the empire."

As conservative bloggers yesterday continued to challenge the veracity of Beauchamp's accounts, Foer said: "It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard's efforts to press an ideological agenda."

Weekly Standard writer Michael Goldfarb responded: "The piece struck me as implausible, and what we did is to raise questions that are completely legitimate. There's nothing ideological about raising these questions when people make claims and don't back up the charges."

Some quick react: Andrew Sullivan, a former New Republic editor:

"I can't see the crime here -- unless he fabricated something and we don't know that. So why the craziness?

"Partly, I think, new media hatred of TNR. Partly that Thomas is obviously a liberal Democrat who's also a soldier. But mainly, it seems to me, the conservative blogosphere has taken such an almighty empirical beating this last year that they have an overwhelming psychic need to lash out at those still clinging to sanity on the war. This Scott Thomas story is a godsend for these people, a beautiful distraction from the reality they refuse to face.

"It combines all the usual Weimar themes out there: treasonous MSM journalists, treasonous soldiers, stories of atrocities that undermine morale (regardless of whether they're true or not), and blanket ideological denial. We have to understand that some people still do not believe that the U.S. is torturing or has tortured detainees, still do not believe that torture or murder or rape occurred at Abu Ghraib, still believe that everyone at Gitmo is a dangerous terrorist captured by US forces, and still believe we're winning in Iraq. If you believe all this and face the mountains of evidence against you, you have to act ever more decisively and emphatically to refute any evidence that might undermine this worldview."

TownHall's Dean Barnett sees a man with a big fat agenda:

"Finally, we have reached the end of the beginning of the 'Scott Thomas' affair. Of all the sad media misadventures we've seen over the past four years, this one will almost surely go down as the most pathetic.

"Here's one thing we know for sure about Scott Thomas Beauchamp. He went off to war to become a writer. Earlier today, I suggested that he might be this war's John Kerry. But from reading Beauchamp's blog, that's clearly not what he had in mind. As a commenter in a previous post noted, he wanted to be this war's Oliver Stone or Anthony Swofford -- a guy who emerged from his time at war as an artiste in full flower . . .

"Let's be clear -- Scott Thomas Beauchamp went to war with the specific goal of ridiculing and belittling the war effort. Yes, he wore the uniform. In virtually all cases, that's praiseworthy. But in Beauchamp's case, he wore the uniform as a means by which to make his artistic bones; he knew that in making those artistic bones, he would undermine the efforts of his brothers in arms. In short, he went to war with the specific purpose of weakening the war effort."

Can we really conclude that based on one blog entry?

American Prospect's Ezra Klein says the bad actors here are the conservative bloggers:

"Look, these people are thugs. They freaked out about The New Republic's anonymous diarist because his words clashed with the childish mythology they've constructed around the US Military. Despite lacking any actual evidence disproving or even calling into question his story, they were able to make enough noise to spark an investigation and media attention. And all this will only further confirm their hunch."

On the Gonzo front, I would venture to say that if you're attorney general, and the former head of the FBI says you're not telling the truth, you've got a problem.

"The dispute over the truthfulness of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales reached a new intensity today as the F.B.I. Director, Robert S. Mueller 3rd, contradicted Mr. Gonzales's sworn testimony before a Senate committee," says the New York Times.

"Mr. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee that the Bush administration's secret eavesdropping program was the main topic at an encounter in the hospital room of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on March 10, 2004, contrary to what Mr. Gonzales told a Senate panel on Tuesday . . .

"In his testimony before the Senate panel on Tuesday, Mr. Gonzales said the subject in the hospital room was 'intelligence activities' under debate in the administration, but not the secret eavesdropping program.

But Mr. Mueller contradicted that version of events today, several hours after four Senate Democrats called for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether Mr. Gonzales perjured himself before Congress."

It's not like most members of Congress had a high opinion of the AG's veracity before this latest flare-up.

The L.A. Times focuses on the big subpoena battle:

"Senate Democrats today called for a special prosecutor to investigate perjury charges against Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales and subpoenaed White House political strategist Karl Rove and a top aide to testify about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys."

I was also toiling away yesterday on the latest McCain staff shakeup, which was of particular interest to me because I wrote about media man Russ Schriefer as part of The Post's series "The Gurus." Now he's out. I'm thinking of starting a new series called "The Ex-Gurus."

Here's the latest:

When he was the media czar for President Bush's 2004 campaign, Mark McKinnon spent the year orchestrating a $150 million advertising blitz deemed crucial to the president's reelection.

Now, as a volunteer left in charge of the remnants of Sen. John McCain's media operation, McKinnon says television commercials are not so important.

"I frankly don't think John McCain needs that much paid media," he said yesterday. "He is a well-regarded American hero whose story is pretty well known. This is a game of survival, and John McCain is a survivor."

McKinnon's comments came after Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens quit their jobs as media consultants for the Arizona Republican's presidential campaign. McCain's communications director, Jill Hazelbaker, said the parting was "amicable" and "unrelated to the management change" when the senator replaced his campaign manager and laid off part of his staff as anemic fundraising left him with little in the bank.

"This certainly isn't the way we hoped it would turn out," said Schriefer, who was recruited by McKinnon after they worked together in both Bush campaigns. But with the lack of resources, he said, "it's a very different kind of campaign than was planned six months ago," and, "after thinking it over, it seemed like a good time to part ways."

McKinnon, who will continue to work with California ad-maker Fred Davis, said that "while I expect John McCain will probably run some media, it probably won't be much and it will probably be late" in the season.

Demonstrating his ability to craft a positive narrative, McKinnon said of McCain: "In many ways, I think what he's just gone through in the campaign makes his story even more compelling. People are rooting for him to come back."

Mitt bobbles a Web question, as the Chicago Tribune reports:

"Romney showed some unfamiliarity with the Internet when he discussed the problem of sexual predators and children.

" 'YouTube is a website that allows kids to network with one another and make friends and contact each other,' Romney explained. 'YouTube looked to see if they had any convicted sex offenders on their web site. They had 29,000.' "

Ah--he meant MySpace.

How big an impact will Fred Thompson have--especially now that we learn he's raised only $3 million? (Of course he doesn't have a huge campaign team yet.) Jay Carney has been investigating:

"I have a piece in the coming print issue of Time on the hard-to-meet expectations being heaped by fretful Republicans on Fred Thompson's I'll-get-in-someday campaign for the GOP nomination. It says volumes about the state of the party, and about the level of discontent among GOP voters with the current field of candidates, that in some national polls Thompson is already challenging Giuliani for front-runner status. Now that he's shaken up his non-campaign campaign and postponed his official entry into the race until September, the expectations will only continue to build. Which means he'll have to deliver an announcement speech-for-the-ages when he does finally get in, or a lot of R's will be deflated."

Kos is practically chortling over Thompson's tepid fundraising:

"Maybe there's some expectation management going on and the numbers are better than hinted at here, but I laughed when Thompson and his people proclaimed he would run a "Howard Dean" type of race, as though saying it would automatically create this grass- and netroots phenomenon. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. But it's not.

"To make matters worse, Thompson's non-campaign campaign has already lost two top-ranking officials, including his campaign manager.

"So McCain is dead, Giuliani is tanking hard, Romney would be having trouble raising money if he didn't have his checkbook to fall back on, and now, the party's savior, seems to be exciting absolutely no one and can't raise money or put together an organization.

"So who will be the GOP's next savior? Gingrich? Cheney?"

Newt in 0'08? Probably not, says Politico:

"Newt Gingrich's long, slow striptease over whether he will seek the presidency in 2008 looks like it might come to an unexpected conclusion: a date with Fred Thompson. Publicly, Gingrich has been sending signals making clear that a presidential candidacy for him is becoming less likely. Privately, he and some of his closest advisers have been meeting with -- and, in at least one prominent case, going to work for -- the lobbyist-actor and former Tennessee senator. 'I've always said it was unlikely I would run,' Gingrich said in an interview last Friday with The Associated Press.

"And, he added, if Thompson 'runs and does well, then I think that makes it easier for me not to run.' "

Ryan Sager x

"Don't start printing up the Bloomberg for President bumper stickers quite yet. A Quinnipiac poll out today finds that even in New York City -- where voters know Mr. Bloomberg about as well as they could, and like Mr. Bloomberg about as well as they could (he has 73% job approval) -- 57% say they 'probably' or 'definitely' wouldn't vote for him. Only 34% say they 'probably' or 'definitely' would vote for him.

"Let those numbers sink in as the Bloomberg for president hysteria continues daily. Even in what should be the stronghold of our technocratic, smoking-banning, gay-marriage-supporting, Bermuda-jetting-off-to, trans-fat-meddling mayor, he gets . . . about a third of the vote. This is not a guy who can run a credible national campaign. Not for all the money in the world."

And here I was worrying about whether Lindsay Lohan is a drunk-driving menace:

"A panel has found that astronauts were allowed to fly on at least two occasions despite warnings they were so drunk they posed a flight risk, sources familiar with the panel's report said Thursday.

"Aviation Week also reported that the independent panel set up by NASA to study astronaut health issues found evidence of 'heavy use of alcohol' before launch that was within the standard 12-hour 'bottle-to-throttle' rule. Flight surgeons and other astronauts warned that drunken astronauts posed a flight risk when they flew on the two known occasions, according to the publication."

I don't know: Doesn't that sound a tad self-destructive before blasting off into outer space?

Finally, Rosie's replacement on "The View" is said to be . . . Whoopi.