TNR has issued A Statement on Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Ace has the best response right here: TNR Claims (Partial) Vindication. Bryan at HotAir is also worth reading: TNR posts Beauchamp “confirmation” that, um, doesn’t really confirm anything. Also see Michelle Malkin and Dean Barnett.

Congratulations to TNR for confirming something that everyone's known since cavemen started taking rocks to each other's heads -- that not everything that goes on in war, among soldiers, during battles and between them, is suitable for the six o'clock news. One of the great pains soldiers have always brought back with them is the inability to explain the things they've seen and done even to their closest loved ones because "they wouldn't understand." That doesn't mean it was immoral, or criminal, it's just that there are things that happen under certain circumstances that just don't look or sound right in the full light of day and civilian peacetime. And many of those soldiers have kept quiet for a variety of reasons -- personal shame or discomfort, a fear of how others will view them, a fear of being judged, a fear of hurting their comrades who they don't want judged, fear of hurting an ongoing effort, or of harming the record of how that effort is judged by history...the reasons these men and women have kept these stories quiet and to themselves or only among the "initiated" are legion.

Now along comes TNR, who gets put in touch with an irresponsible punk who fancies himself the next Oliver Stone and isn't above embellishing his story a bit to make it more interesting. And thanks to our communications revolution, our new culture of instant gratification and voyeurism where everything is our business and media is more able than ever not only to influence the course of a war but even of individual operations -- how convenient for TNR's editors who don't much care for this war or this president. They've got a wonderful opportunity for irresponsibility in printing material that can hurt our guys and their effort while it's still going on. You used to have to wait for the war to be over to read the reflective soul-unburdening memoirs of men in combat. Now the damage comes straight from the front to editorial desks where the adults and the wisdom and the judgment are all out to lunch, but the political agenda and the will to influence (consequences be damned) are solidly in play. And they say the bloggers are irresponsible...