Scott Beauchamp

One needs to look no further than the Associated Press's story on the Scott Beauchamp saga to understand why the general public not following the news closely doesn't "get" just how biased and antagonistic towards the war, the military, and American soldiers Old Media outlets are.

In the case of Scott Beauchamp, now that their brethren at The New Republic (TNR) have been caught red-handed publishing made-up stories, John Milburn and Ellen Simon of the Associated Press appear to be doing everything they can to cover for them -- first, with a headline (probably determined elsewhere within AP) that fails to communicate anything resembling the essence of the story, and second, by struggling mightily in their reporting to make it appear that this is a "he said, she said" dispute, instead of a situation where Beauchamp and TNR have been thoroughly discredited.

Here's the headline:

Army denounces articles written by GI

Trouble is, Paragraphs 4 through 7 of the story make it clear that this is no mere denunciation -- it's a complete repudiation that the person the Army is supposedly only "denouncing" agrees with:

The Columbia Journalism Review hit a new low with Paul McLeary's latest article when apparently claimed milbloggers didn't serve in the military. Outraged that milbloggers and the right dared to question the veracity of Scott Beauchamp's fantastical writings which claimed US soldiers in Iraq played with the skulls of Iraqi children, McCleary asked “Why do conservatives hate the troops” and pretended to take the side of those beleaguered “troops.” In response to the legitimate discussion of Beauchamp's liberal activism in college, McLeary cattily huffed (bold mine throughout):

How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.)