Perhaps it was the claim by “Gracie” (a pseudonym for the fired staffer) that Foer wanted to cover for Beauchamp so that Elspeth wouldn’t find out that her husband was a weaver of exaggerated stories. I could see that causing some animus in the halls of TNR.

You mean that Gracie’s accusation is the reason TNR fired Gracie, or that Gracie’s accusation is why this angle matters?

There’s a certain amount of gallantry, perhaps misplaced, in protecting someone’s wife like that.

That was a little vague, wasn’t it? I was directing that comment to this line in your post:

TNR thinks it’s important enough to fire the person who leaked that information. I’m not sure I see why.

There is a huge “so what?” issue.

I sincerely doubt that someone who intimately knew the actual “Scott Thomas” wouldn’t have immediately recognized that a tale such as the one of “Scott” insulting the woman at the “chow hall” as being completely out of character. Thus, the fiancee/wife should have immediately flagged the piece as BS. “Scott” wasn’t attributing his behavior to someone else and his blog screed certainly leads on to conclude he is a creature of the PC culture.

All is fair in love and war.…and there are virtually no ethical boundaries in the liberal publishing world.

I sincerely doubt that someone who intimately knew the actual “Scott Thomas” wouldn’t have immediately recognized that a tale such as the one of “Scott” insulting the woman at the “chow hall” as being completely out of character. Thus, the fiancee/wife should have immediately flagged the piece as BS. “Scott” wasn’t attributing his behavior to someone else and his blog screed certainly leads on to conclude he is a creature of the PC culture.

Posted by chris on July 26, 2007 2:46 PM

Unless it ISN’T out of character for him, in which case he’s one crappy human being…

What involvement did Elspeth Reeve have in the story? Was she the fact checker? Supervise the fact checker? Editor? Do the research that the fact checker relied on? Is she related to anyone in senior management at TNR?

I addressed Chris’ very good point in the follow up post linked above.

Hint to Mr. Beauchamp. You don’t turn the oven on, its the fumes that get you.

Nuff said.

Regarding Podhoretz’s comments: all too predictable. Jpod is great; read him everyday. But let’s not pretend he would have anything near his current prominence, without the early career boosts afforded the offspring of powerhouse conservative warriors Norm Podhoretz and Midge Decter.

And yeah, anyone who’s worked a real world job longer than 10 minutes knows that’s just the way things are done. But that doesn’t mean we have to embrace it as consequence-free, especially when it occurs within an organization touting their meritocratic, holier-than-thou, horror at inside baseball - like TNR.

One thing I don’t get — if Scott Thomas is married or engaged to a TNR staffer, why did Foer only know to a “near certainty” that Thomas was an actual soldier. It’s possible he was hedging on the theory that since receiving the submission from Thomas Thomas had been killed, discharged or something else. That makes little sense because Reeve would have dropped that tidbit, I suspect. Very curious.