LA Times Asks Some Tough Questions About Army's Conduct In Beauchamp-New Republic Affair
October 29, 2007 -- 9:50 AM EST // //

The other day I noted that the Army has promised to investigate an apparent leak to Matt Drudge of documents relating to its probe of Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the U.S. soldier accused of fabricating stories about fellow troops in a series of articles for The New Republic. The leak, which appears to be the work of an Army official intent on delivering payback to the mag, raises further questions about the Army's less-than-admirable handling of this whole affair.

I'd been wondering when we were going to see some aggressive reporting and/or opinion-making about this, when along comes this excellent piece in the Los Angeles Times by Tim Rutten. In it, Rutten doesn't engage in any namby-pamby "on the one hand, on the other hand" weaseldome. Instead, he comes right out and says that TNR editors Frank Foer and Peter Scoblic aren't the ones playing politics here; he points a finger squarely at the Army and concludes that its conduct stinks really badly. Rutten asks a number of tough questions about this whole affair:

* Who leaked the documents to Drudge and why, among all the documents the Army must have collected in this case, was one of them a transcript that could be used to put Foer and Scoblic in a bad light?

* Why did Drudge take the documents down and why hasn't he explained his reasons for doing so?

* Why no original link to the Memorandum [Beauchamp's signed statement about this], the only document that would have contained evidence?

* Why has the Army kept Beauchamp in Iraq where it can control access to him and he's beyond the reach of any other jurisdiction?

* Why hasn't the Army complied with the New Republic's FOI request?

All good questions that are still crying out for answers. There's a really good story out there for any reporter who wants to go out and get it, and the above questions offer a good road map on how to get there.

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