[Cicero]

This retraction is as full of deliberate lies and obfuscations as Beauchamp’s original report.

OK, New Republic. There was a while there when it looked as if you were trying to put some distance between yourselves and The Nation on the war. Time to retract this retraction and admit that you were so eager to undermine the troops that you never did even the most elementary fact checking.

[counterpunch]

Wow, I just read through 14 pages for what should have been only a paragraph, the very last one, naturally:

When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

The whole ordeal is a big "so what?"
While the details of the stories were exaggerated and misplaced, what it tells us in the end is that Beauchamp and some of his buddies were immature and heartless from the very start, and their service didn't change that for better or for worse. It's just who they are. I could see some guys like them finding some bone fragments and wearing them on their heads and thinking it's funny. And I could see dogs running under Bradleys just like they do cars, and the driver taking credit for it. Their callousness and lack of discipline certainly does not reflect the image the military wants to project of the character of our soldiers, and is yet another embarrassment, just like the conduct of the night shift at Abu Ghraib. What Beauchamp didn't seem to understand - or perhaps care about - when reporting his juvenile misconduct to TNR, was that it reflects poorly on all of the men and women that are serving, the institution he serves, and his country in the eyes of the world. Just as the Democrats did not care about the damage they were inflicting when they gleefully leaked the photos from the investigation the military was investigating and prosecuting at Abu Ghraib.

[Chode]

and the RATS, take another one in the...............HA ha!!!

[YHAOS]

Well, Well, Well . . . it turns out that TNR’s politics are just a little bit too artful. Who knew?

[Billthedrill]

The comments on their page just about melted my monitor. I read all 14 pages of interminable blather without finding out the answer to the real question - given how inflammatory these stories were, why did TNR only bother to investigate after the thing blew up in their faces? They stated it was because it was "difficult." Is this an excuse to publish them anyway?

Worse is their "well, we still think some of it might be true" approach to the evaluation of these events. So what? If every word were true as printed TNR would still be without an excuse for having published it without checking it. Unbelievable.

[muir_redwoods]

Every effort this pointless rag has made in the past 5 months has been to find a way out of the lies they knew they were printing. They have not made any effort to “verify” anything because they knew from the start that they were publishing partisan propaganda.

[One_who_hopes_to_know]

Beauchamp has lived through this ordeal under the most trying of conditions. He is facing pressures that we can only begin to imagine. And, over the course of our dealings with him, we've tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

So - they give the benefit of the doubt to the slanderer - but not to the military men being slandered - who just happend to be risking their lives to insure this claptrap can be printed.

[SShultz460]

Awaiting the What’s your problem with Jonah and Beinart

[Yardstick]

My what a mealy-mouthed, weasel-worded statement of recognition that their reporter was a liar. But I guess when you’re dealing with liberals this is about as close as you can get to acceptance of responsibility. The bottom line for me is how unsurprising it is that a leftist rag would err on the side of backstabbing our troops. It’s just par for the course.

[rudypoot]

“The nature of the evidence is irrelevant; it’s the seriousness of the charge that matters.”

- Dan Rather

[kylaka]

The old fake but accurate cop out.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

the shield of anonymity--which, in the wrong hands, can become license to exaggerate, if not fabricate.

Well.. actually, no. It depends. If the mainstream media are the gatekeepers of what is news or issues that's all you need. You can even give your real name.

Without the Internet and with the "Fairness Doctrine" this NR lie would have prevailed just as did Walter "North Vietnam Communists' most trusted man in America" Cronkite's lie that the Tet offensive proved that the U.S. could not win the war in Viet Nam.