The New Republic editors have once again waded into the Beauchamp affair. The latest note of theirs is an odd little affair. It begins by whining that “many of the questions (regarding the Diarists’ accuracy) have been formulated by people with ideological agendas.”

While this crack is clearly a non-sequitur, it’s still gratifying to see the Editors for once stumble into a kernel of truth. Like I’ve been saying from the start of this matter, regardless of the Diarists’ accuracy, the editorial decision to run them without putting them into context of the 160,000 men and women who are serving nobly in Iraq represented an unconscionable slander on our troops. That’s why this story has so agitated so many of TNR’s critics. For the people who know our soldiers, who are in contact with them and who really do support them rather than just mouth disingenuous rhetoric to that effect, the Beauchamp Diarists were grotesquely unfair.

The fact that they were also transparent frauds made them exponentially worse. Let’s take this little detail about the Bradley Fighting Vehicle that appeared in the third diarist:

The second kill was a straight shot: A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn't have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.

Now, Bradleys are versatile and impressive vehicles. But “severing” isn’t really in their repertoire. The Bradley has a tread of roughly 30”. It typically tips the scales at 30 tons before a fight. Anyone with any knowledge of physics would tell you that the only thing that such a machine could sever would have to be bigger than a Mastodon.

And yet when The New Republic received the Diarist with this wild allegation, its editors weren’t at all skeptical. The most benign explanation for this credulity is that none of the youngsters running TNR knew a blessed thing about a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and were too arrogant, lazy or stupid to check into the matter. Maybe they thought “Fighting Vehicle” was a euphemism, or that “Fighting Vehicle” meant it had sabers protruding from its side. (If the Diarist had confused a latte with a cappuccino, perhaps that would have rang alarm bells at New Republic headquarters.)

REGARDLESS, WHEN TNR BEGAN INVESTIGATING the Diarists, the editors had one purpose – save Private Beauchamp, and in the process save themselves. Fabulist Stephen Glass and the factually and originality challenged Ruth Shalit had humiliated TNR in the not too distant past. Whether TNR could survive another similar embarrassment was (and remains) an open question.

The mission to save Private Beauchamp faced one critical problem: Any critical thinking person, looking at the Beauchamp Diarists objectively, had to smell the unmistakable whiff of 100% pure horse-hockey. Bradleys don’t saw dogs in half. People don’t play around in two feet of sewage. Wounded and disfigured women don’t hang around forward operating bases. Soldiers can tell the difference between other soldiers and civilian contractors. Skulls don’t fit under combat helmets.

So what was The New Republic to do? The most honorable thing (or the least dishonorable thing) would have been to belt out a chorus of Britney Spears’ “Whoops I Did It Again.” They then could have salvaged at least some of their honor, if not their reputations as editors. Instead, they tried to build a case to defend Scott Beauchamp.

As Bob Owens at the Confederate Yankee blog pointed out Thursday, The New Republic editors said they “contacted the manufacturer of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle System, where a spokesman confirmed that the vehicle is as maneuverable as Beauchamp described.” When Bob Owens gave Beauchamp’s description of the Bradley’s "maneuverability" to the spokesman, he said:

I did talk to a young researcher with TNR who only asked general questions about "whether a Bradley could drive through a wall" and "if it was possible for a dog to get caught in the tracks" and general questions about vehicle specifications…The width of the track makes it highly unlikely that running over a dog would leave two intact parts. One half of the dog would have to be completely crushed.

Obviously, The New Republic didn’t ask the Bradley expert about the Diarists’ most wild accusation. Strangely, yesterday’s little missive from TNR’s editors didn’t see fit to report that detail, something that reflects not on Scott Beauchamp’s integrity and honor but on the integrity and honor of The New Republic’s editors. Or lack thereof.

The New Republic also didn’t report the Bradley expert’s name. It took Bob Owens a week to track him down and talk to him. If one were inclined to cynicism, one might infer that the TNR editors left his name out of its report because they didn’t want any busy-body agenda-driven bloggers seeking him out.

ONE LAST NOTE. There’s a bit in yesterday’s TNR note that reads, “Scott Beauchamp is currently a 24-year-old soldier in Iraq who, for the past 15 days, has been prevented by the military from communicating with the outside world, aside from three brief and closely monitored phone calls to family members.”

Beauchamp a victim? For once, TNR’s editors and I are on the same page, but for very different reasons. If you read Scott Beauchamp’s blog, you’ll get the picture of a confused and disoriented young man. Right now, Scott Beauchamp is a very young man who has gotten himself into a very deep mess.

While it’s nearly impossible to feel much sympathy for Beauchamp considering the way he has slandered his comrades in arms, TNR’s editors should have been providing adult supervision on this project. Much earlier in this scandal, I compared TNR’s editors to someone who gave a gun to a suicidal college student.

Simply put, The New Republic should have and could have saved Scott Beauchamp from himself. If saving Private Beauchamp was something they truly cared about, the time to do so was several months ago when he began submitting stories for publication that were absurd on their face.

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com