So says the very nonpartisan Scott Thomas Beauchamp, baffled at how an apolitical such as himself could possibly have been swept up into an ideological malestrom.

O rly?

“Glenn is completely submerged in politics on campus. It is honestly impossible to think about politics at MU without thinking of Glenn,” says Scott Beauchamp, editor-in-chief of Prospectus, a liberal campus news magazine. Beauchamp and Rehn met one year ago while campaigning for Howard Dean.

Rehn, incidentally, promised to spend every penny he had, bankrupting himself, in order to campaign for Howard "Interesting Theory" Dean. That's from an article linked on WStandard blog -- which I'll suggest you click on.

Check out the byline. Or do you want to just guess at what it is?

You know what it's going to say, don't you?

I'd say Allah's they-only-met-at-TNR theory is, well, rather scotched at this point, Old Boy.

Dan Riehl has more on Rehn and Beauchamp, reluctant ideological warriors. Kind of interesting how an old blog post of Beauchamp's included the image of someone who'd lost half their face in war.

An image, of course, that would resurface in Beauchamp's "reports" from Baghdad.

Note to Scott Thomas Beauchamp: Dude, you were ragging on how awful the war in Iraq was before you were even out of Germany. Please don't sell us this nonsense about your having no previous partisan stake in any of this.

Posted by: Ace at 12:43 PM | Comments (119)
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The buzz at the Corner, which hasn't linked me for Liberrocky's scoop, posted first here (thanks!), is that the wedding announcement might be fake.

Someone has purportedly discovered that Beauchamp is engaged to a New Republic staffer because of an Internet wedding registry. I'm not linking to it because, after looking through it, I think it's spurious — only six gifts are sought, no one's bought any of them, and there are no other items registered in their names at any other wedding site. If someone is now manufacturing bogus wedding registries to prove something — even to expose a relationship that actually exists — then there's a lot more lunacy attaching to Beauchamp's tales besides the details of the tales themselves, true or untrue.

That "someone" would be this site, J-Pod. Come on now, you've linked here before. What is up with this?

If you read the post, you'd also know that I had a source telling me this for two or three days now. And that source was in a position to know this. And he never suggested I check the weddingchannel -- in fact, he told me specifically that trying to google the names on the TNR masthead would produce no results at all.

Allah picks up this worry and frets this is some elaborate sting to get bloggers.

I am less worried.

For one thing, my source was personally vouched for by another blogger. Unless this other blogger, who I have internet-known for years, is lying or in on the scam, then this guy or gal is who he or she says she is.

Not sure why I'm protecting the identity at this point. I'll stop.

I was to call in today to talk to him to confirm who is myself.

When I called, I was told he no longer worked there and had been dismissed "yesterday." Actually early this morning, of course. This accords with what "Gracie" tells me, and posted on blogs.

Now, if TNR is setting this all up somehow to embarrass bloggers -- well, 1, isn't that childish, and 2, why should we be embarrassed about being deceived by stories and information they were deliberately planting?

If the White House tells a reporter a scam story which casts itself in a bad light -- and creates a fake bit of internet background information to support it -- and the reporter verifies the story and runs with it, is the reporter to be blamed for running with the scam fed to him by the White House?

Look, I know the guy's name, I called the TNR offices, what TNR told me conformed to what I had been told by the source. If they're "setting us up" by creating false information, honestly, I don't see the embarrassment of posting their false information. In this scenario, they're pumping this false information out there themselves; am I supposed to not only gather the information that's being leaked but then somehow confirm it isn't part of an elaborate disinformation campaign?

I mean, honestly. If someone wants to plant evidence on the internet that shows them in a less than flattering light, and also wants to send put-up fake sources out there to falsely frame themselves... well, I guess that itself would be a pretty big story.

Oh, And... Another blogger already had figured this out based on the information provided. In fact, left TNR a message last night asking about the name, specifically, of "Scott Thomas Beauchamp." And then today TNR outs him themselves.

Did TNR really feed this other blogger the name through a shill?

Seems... doubtful.

The Lack of Gifts Registered Explained: SW writes:

This morning I checked a few of the guy's comments on his MySpace page. The "majmaj" comments interested me so I clicked over to majmaj's page and scrolled down to find a May 19 comment from Beauchamps saying he was
stuck in Germany, needed help getting back, and had just gotten married the week before.

I'm checking that out now. Assuming it's true (which I do), it explains the lack of gifts bought for the October wedding: The wedding was moved up and already happened. The weddingchannel.com information is outdated. But still probative.

Unless, again, this is all some elaborate Mission: Impossible con designed to discredit Ace of Spades HQ and discarded lies.

Podhoertz On A Bender:

The issue with Scott Thomas Beauchamp isn't how he came to be published by the New Republic, or who his girlfriend-fiancee-wife might be. If TNR chose to publish his work because he had a relationship with someone on staff, so what? People are e-mailing things to me about this as though there is some dark conspiracy because social relationships may have played a role in professional advancement. The staffer whose name is being floated in connection with Beauchamp is guilty of nothing, and it's creepy that people are intimating she might be — and are already so invested in proving the truth of it that somebody may have concocted a spurious wedding registry for the two of them.

The only issue here was, and remains, whether the stories Beauchamp told in his Diarist (and in the two that preceded it) were matters of fact, or embellishments of tales he had heard around the base, or were invented out of whole cloth.

Um, yeah, the main issue is whether the stories are true, but given the fact that TNR is taking its sweet old time confirming what ought to have been confirmed before, it's worth noting that 1) this guy was chosen not for any obvious credentials, but because he was the easiest guy to find, and 2) further was chosen, likely, because his previous wannabe-Hemmingway blogfarts demonstrate his strong partisan commitment against the war and anyone who supports it. "Chickenhawks," he calls all war supporters, apparently including actual war veterans in the "chickenhawks" category.

So, let's recap:

1) No obvious experience of credentials to recommend him above anyone else

2) Except the ease of recruiting him

3) A strong, previously-known record of strong partisan and anti-war animus

4) A passionate supporter of Howard Dean, who was anti-war before anti-war was cool.

None of these actually prove his reportage is false. They do, however, suggest that Foer was very sloppy in assigning this guy to be the Baghdad Diarist, seems to have hired him out of expediency rather than as the result of a long, careful candidate search, and deliberately picked a strong partisan who could be expected to reliably churn out anti-military pieces.

All of which, incidentally, suggests that Foer was especially derelict in not fact-checking this guy's ass.

Lost in all this is the fact that this all should have been fact-checked before hand. I'm a fucking blogger and I fact-checked. But TNR, with two cases of previous fabulists on its record (Shallitt, Glass), doesn't bother?

There is this ABSURD idea that if Foer can NOW fact-check and prove that these stories are somewhat or arguably true or at least true-ish, that absolves TNR.

BULLSHIT. The fact-checking should have been done before. What the fuck is this? I feel like someone just skull-fucked me with the crazy-stick. Are people really suggesting that if TNR somehow manages some light, arguable confirmation after the fact that absolves them of their sin of not checking beforehand?

What?

Huh?

Did someone just beat the fuck out of you with a moron-bat?

What kind of kindergarten bullshit is this? Run the story then bother to see if it's true? Especially when you're TNR, The House That Glass Built, for God's sakes?

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (44)
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Reorganized, Re-edited, Corrected Post.

The actual quote was "Frank doesn't want to tell ___ her husband is a liar," offered up not by my source but by someone else. The blank has now been confirmed as TNR staffer Elspeth Reeve, and even though the quote was "husband," there's some question about that: weddingchannel.com says their wedding is coming in October. Though perhaps they had a quickie civil ceremony before his last deployment or something, with the formal ceremony to occur later.

Look, husband/fiancee, not sure it matters. It certainly seems that everyone in the TNR offices were under the impression they'd already been married.

I was going to let this slide and not report it but then TNR played the hard guys and fired the guy actually sharing information about this with people. Meanwhile Foer and Beuchamp are still drawing paychecks.

Needless to say, Elspeth Reeve has nothing in particular to do with this, other than, I guess, some guy who walked by in the hallway suggesting her husband for the Niger Iraq mission. Gracie's pretty firm on her innocence, and, even if he weren't, this was Foer's call, not hers.

Scott Thomas Beauchamp was not chosen for this job because he had some terrific amount of experience or credentials or integrity. He was picked for Plame-type reasons: He's married or engaged to someone at TNR.

As Gracie reported to me, this is openly discussed in the TNR offices. One representative quote: "Frank[lin Foer] doesn't want to call [woman's] husband a liar." That wasn't Gracie saying that, that was someone else in the office, explaining the inter-office politics of this.

Gracie: Okay: Although I'm 100% certain that the husband of a staff member is central to this, I'm only about 90% certain that the husband IS Scott Thomas -- the alternative possibility is that the husband is one of the soldiers vouching for Scott Thomas

me: okay.

well I was going to stay off of that anyway.
I was more asking about:
1) The fact it's an open secret in the office
2:30 AM 2) your opinion that "Scott Thomas" was chosen for poor reasons, having to do with personal familiarity, rather than obvious journalistic credentials
3) that it's your opinion foer is the real screw-up here.

Note: I'm including that to prove I wasn't super-eager to mention that Beauchamp only got the job through his engagement to a staffer. I was going to say merely that he got the job due more to personal familiarity and connections than any obvious qualifications.

I was going to hold off on that. Until they pissed me off.

It's all so Plame-ish. As Gracie wrote to me, of all the embeds and milbloggers and real journalists they could have picked for the job, they instead chose to go with a very partisan, very inexperienced blogger just out of "laziness." Just because they knew him. Just because it was easy.

I actually think part of the reason was that they knew Beauchamp's politics -- he having put them on display on his goofy blog -- and so, just like with Valerie Plame, they knew the report was going to come back the way they wanted it when they sent him. But Gracie says it's just Occam's razor: Laziness.

Still, he's just speculating on the reason (as am I).

BTW, I have long kinda-sorta wanted to embed in Iraq... if TNR wants to sponsor me, I am more than willing to do some light petting with Michelle Cottle, if need be.

Thanks to Liberrocky for nailing down confirmation of the marriage/engagement angle. I was up half the night googling that.

I really want to stress that I wasn't particularly psyched about reporting this part of the story. But honestly, the name's already out there anyway; I'm just the first to run with it. There would have been someone right behind me.

Plus, like I said, I think TNR is playing very dirty pool here.

Allah's Always Gotta Be A Dick Update: Allah is questioning whether my suggested timeline is right -- that Elspeth got Beauchamp the gig because they were engaged/married. Instead, he wonders: Did Beauchamp already get the gig, and then had a whirlwind courtship with Elspeth?

All I can say is that this would have had to have been a very quick courtship. The guy starts posting for TNR a couple of months ago and then he's married or engaged to a woman he couldn't possibly have met more than once or twice, owing to his overseas deployment?

Further, my information tells me they went to the same college together.

Dianna, for example, writes:

Ace, would you please tell Allah to go check TNR's staffer page? Elspeth Reeve attended the University of Missouri (Journalism School). So did Beauchamp, some sort of writing course.

I already told him this; he's still saying it's possible Beauchamp was hired independently of Elsepth, and then they had a lightning-fast courtship/engagement/marriage (the duration of which he was mostly overseas in Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq).

And he's right: It's possible. In the sense it violates no known physical laws of the universe.

Is it likely? No, it is not likely. But I will note the possibility of this rather unlikely scenario.

Allah also notes that Beauchamp may have already left Iraq, and have come back home in, say, January. And romanced Elspeth since then.

But if that's the case, TNR is doing some heavy-duty misleading, because they are deliberately creating the impression his dispatches are recent if not real-time.

...

Fired: I knew this, but wasn't sure if I was supposed to say anything about it.

TNR fired Gracie at 7:25 this morning with the non-explanation, "Your services are no longer required." This information is offered up by one of Gracie's psuedonyms ("near certainty" on that) at discarded lies.

I was holding that back because, other than Gracie sending me an email early AM telling me of this nasty wake-up call, I haven't been able to make contact and determine if I could run this information, or if a protest was planned, etc. In other words, my stating "my source was fired" sort of tells them they were right, eh? But it's been announced on the site they're busily checking (when they should be checking stuff in Iraq, no?).

That's why I had "near certainty" the person searching for Gracie's posts was from TNR, btw.

I guess I'm not letting anything out when I say the other blogger who vouched for Gracie was Sean Gleeson, over there at discarded lies. He's the one who told me about TNR searching discarded lies for hints about Gracie's identity -- which they seem to have found.

And that's sort of why I decided to reveal the marriage angle-- which I was going to hold back, but they pissed me off with this.

Thanks to Lewis from discarded lies for letting me know the information was already out there.

Re-Edit: After having put in doubt about Beuachamp being married to the staffer, I took it back out again.

Chickenhawk Offers His Services! Jeff Emmanuel, a special ops vet, offers to be the new Baghdad Diarist.

He won't get the job. For one thing, he's qualified. For another thing, he can't be guaranteed to deliver the anti-military fictions Beauchamp did.

For a third thing, he's not going steady with anyone at TNR.

Allah's got lots of updates, hard to keep up with it all.

Update on TNR's Mole-Hunt: I actually warned Gracie to delete all his browser history and the like last night. Alas, he wasn't at work, and besides, TNR probably had a record of all his web-activity anyway.

At any rate, I think they were busy in their offices last night checking web activity, and also maybe accessing everyone's computer for history. And then searching on discarded lies for Gracie's posts, to confirm the times.

Hi, Ace! I'm the one who told Sean that the IP address in your post was doing searches on discarded lies for Beth Greem, when we were discussing what we could do to better cloak Beth/Gracie's identity. At the time, I was only speculating that the searcher using that IP address might be from TNR. I've since investigated our logs further, and have determined that that particular IP address likely does not belong to TNR, and I regret that it's appearing here. I have since determined the actual IP address* that TNR's offices were using to access our site. A whois returns TNR as the owner of the IP block in question, while the 72.75.X.X IP is just some Verizon DSL account in the DC area and could be anyone.

I can authoritatively state that TNR did their investigation into Beth/Gracie's identity from their corporate network and their own netblock, not some Verizon DSL account. One of the mistakes Beth/Gracie made was using his computer at TNR in whistleblowing, which made their investigation much easier. Based on that, I would greatly appreciate it if you removed the 72.75.X.X address from your post, so as to avoid accusing someone who is likely uninvolved. Thank you.

That's from Evariste at discarded lies.

I'm deleting that IP now.

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 AM | Comments (347)
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YouTube-- it's awesome! Light Young Japanese Girls Making Out With Each Other Warning.

Big props to ohigotcha for doing that.

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (12)
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Hearing the footsteps, Scott Thomas and TNR reveal the full name.

Of course he's an antiwar liberal. "Silly Republicans," one blog entry reads.

Who else would TNR have gotten for the job?

I asked my source if Scott Thomas viewed his TNR gig as a stepping stone to landing an agent and nice fat advance. He said he didn't know, having never met the guy. Turns out Scott Thomas tells us himself:

I know that NOT participating in a war (and such a misguided one at that) should be considered better than wanting to be in one just to write a book...but you know, maybe id rather be a good man than a good artist...be both? Some can and some cant...i guess it all depends on how great an artist, or how great a man they want to be. Sometimes it feels like i have to choose between being totally loyal to thoughts of my future family OR totally loayl to chasing down the muse. must find a middle ground.

In other words, he would be a conscious objector, and considers that "better" than his reason for actually fulfilling his obligations -- in order to get a book-deal out of it.

As for the difficult "good man versus good artist" dilemma: It seems he chose to stretch the truth in order to be the latter and wound up being neither.

Posted by: Ace at 09:12 AM | Comments (49)
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I kind of just like the Jerky Boyz style stupidity of it. Content warning for silly uses of profanity by a moronically sarcastic lizard.

Recognize the voice?

Thanks to RDBrewer.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 PM | Comments (9)
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I'm trying to verify my source, which is tough, because he or she (I honestly don't know which) would like to remain anonymous. For what it's worth, I'm becoming convinced that he or she is exactly who he or she doesn't say her or she is.

What I mean is that this person seems in a position to know stuff. I'm trying to get that proof; once I do, I'll go with what I'm being fed.

There are two stories here. One is the one I called a "bombshell" earlier -- since there's chatter about it online, I don't think I'm giving anything away by simply linking what is already out there. This from Sean Gleeson, posting at discarded lies.

I've been picking up a lot of "chatter" on the Internets this afternoon along these lines. Somebody knows something, or at least somebody knows somebody who knows something. I betcha a nickel Scott Thomas is outed by the end of the day tomorrow, at the latest.

"Hints" are being dropped in a lot of places.

Ultimately, though, I don't know how important it is to know who "Scott Thomas" actually is. From what I gather, he is definitely in Baghdad and definitely a soldier, so the "who" only confirms that part of the story. (Which, of course, was already widely assumed to be true anyway.)

There is some question about the "how" of it, how he came to be TNR's one and only Man in Baghdad, but that too isn't huge. There is an angle there, to be sure, just not a huge one.

As I've talked to my source -- who isn't big on revealing the "who" anyway -- I've begun to think that maybe I shouldn't really be focused on that, but rather on what's going on inside TNR, which seems a more interesting avenue and also isn't just a one-day revelation. (Which my source isn't super-psyched about in the first place, again.)

Since beginning this post I've now gone up to "near certainty" on this source, which seems enough for TNR, so it's good enough for me. (Another blogger just vouched personally for the source.)

I'll see what I can and can't write and then hopefully will have some stuff. Not the bombshell of the who, probably; that might be broken by tomorrow morning by someone else. At this point it's just a race and I think just a matter of time.

Update: I've now been informed by a blogger he "knows" the name, and is thinking about writing up a post for tomorrow, after getting comment from TNR.

Not a sure thing he'll run with it. But he says he knows, he's been told. The source was more open with him than with me. I got the basics of "Scott Thomas'" identity, but he got the actual name.

Just Got Off Of Google Chat... with "Gracie." I'll post it tomorrow after cleaning it up and confirming one thing. (Like, her identity, which I have "near certainty" about but I'm going to go that extra mile that TNR doesn't bother with.)

I don't know the name of Scott Thomas and in fact asked almost nothing about that (I imagine it might already be broken before I'm even awake, so why bother?). So nothing on that score, but some stuff is kinda interesting.

Posted by: Ace at 08:37 PM | Comments (102)
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As expected, he was fired, and as expected, he and his unwashed supporters made asses of themselves over the firing.

He gets heckled here by a guy. As Allah points out, make sure you listen closely for his rapier-sharp wit.

I waited to post this because, as it turns out, I have a little exclusive. Back in 2003 I was in the Comedy Cellar in NY and, to my great surprise, Ward Churchill was one of the middle performers in the set, going under the name "The Amazing Chutch." I recorded his comedy set, and have transcribed it below for your enjoyment. more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (48)
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Not really. But in case you didn't pick up on it, Slublog's Ron Paul post was an homage to the greatest Onion article ever published, titled Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock? (Um, content warning, in case you couldn't tell from the headline.)

I imagine most of you have read it, but if you haven't, it's about time. Killer.

More Joke Thievery: Simpsons vs. Family Guy: more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:11 PM | Comments (21)
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Okay, I passed on his archly camp criticism of The Hillary, "Well... I don't know about that coat..."

But he just won't stop.

"This is actually not hard, this is fun," Edwards said as he climbed a hill on County Road T16 on a black Trek road bike he borrowed for the day. "The biggest problem is my butt hurts. Is that normal?"

No, it's not normal, John. Tell Elizabeth to take her time easing it in rather than bull-rushing for your pyloric valve, huh?

Thanks to Paulitics.

Posted by: Ace at 03:53 PM | Comments (26)
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