TNR’s Franklin Foer took fourteen pages to finally get around to admitting what the rest of us knew months ago. Namely, that Beauchamp’s stories were fabrications. There’s a lot of self serving BS and half truths mixed in as well, but here’s the punch line:

When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

Andrew Sullivan continues to stand by his buddy Foer saying of his investigation “But Frank’s painfully extensive re-reporting and final conclusion are not the work of someone ducking editorial responsibility or accountability”.

Unfortunately, as Karl at Protein Wisdom points out, Foer’s “painfully extensive re-reporting” is full of half truths, unanswered questions, and contradictions.

Reaction in the real reality based community is pretty universal; TNR published Beauchamp’s stories because they fit the magazine’s narrative, Foer and company have been ducking accountability for months, and Foer — at a minimum — should be fired. Here’s a roundup:

Michelle Malkin has a good roundup, and spot on analysis

Patterico thinks we may just be starting to see the fallout

Bob Owens, who has been on this one from the beginning

Allah and Bryan have more

Glenn makes a fitting octapus reference

Powerline calls it the Fog of Foer

Dan Riehl wants to know why the smear on Matt Sanchez

Q and O says Foer pulled the eject handle

1. [...] Back Scott Thomas Beauchamp of TNR infamy is back. Many of us had hoped that — after being proven a liar– he would have gone off quietly into the night to finish out his service in the Army. Well, [...]

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