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.)
Yeah, he really wrote that. It doesn't matter whether he meant that milbloggers didn't join the military or that they didn't go to college. Either statement is stupid, since 96.8% of the officers have a college education, and the first part of “milblogger” stands for....military! Because the left constantly remind us that people mostly join the military to get out of poverty and to go to college, I doubt that McLeary was referring to milblogger's education.
Since McLeary complained about milbloggers like Blackfive's Uncle Jimbo, who had the temerity to challenge the “Scott Thomas” writings, then maybe Uncle J could politely "explain" to McLeary that he's one of the acceptable bloggers. Because McLeary is on the left and in the media, obviously he's the better judge of who Uncle J should be allowed to address.
Next, McLeary criticized milbloggers for questioning the story and then said...there are questions about the story:
While there are some very legitimate questions about what Beauchamp wrote, nothing, it's worthy of note, has been proved false yet. But that hasn't stopped the sharp knives of a slew of bloggers from coming out.
In one fell swoop, he covered himself in case the story is false and also contradicted his entire premise. If there are “very legitimate questions,” then why is it wrong for milbloggers to ask them? I seem to recall the media and the left lecturing about the importance of listening to the military.
The media love a story too good to check, especially at “The New Republic. Without milbloggers and righty bloggers, there would be many real and fake soldiers and sailors telling false tales of terrible military abuses, along with the media's negative portrayals of the military, and all of them would still be portrayed as true by the media. Remember Ilario Pantano?
Since Jimmy Massey, Jesse MacBeth, Amorita Randall, Micah Wright, Josh Lansdale and others have been outed as either outright frauds or as liars, why should milbloggers and righty bloggers have believed claims from some anonymous person who said he was a soldier and told tales in "a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan," to quote a real soldier's soldier, especially when the author's legitimacy and veracity was backed up only by a magazine with a history of fraudulent reporting?
While McLeary professed that there are “very legitimate questions” about Beauchamp's tales, it seems that only the “right kind” of people are allowed to ask them. Now if only those people would ask.
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