"Near certainty." [Updated and bumped] [And updated again.]
By Moe Lane Posted in Archived — Comments (19) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
[Another UPDATE]: TNR finally came forward with a name for the guy: see here for further details. Definitely a serving soldier: now that we have a name, I look forward to the results of the investigations.
[UPDATE: Well, it's been a busy few days on this front. TNR's standing pat (after many a merry editing adventure by the NYT), which has caused Ace, Allahpundit, and Mudville Gazette to put down their final markers on the subject. Outside the Wire offers a solution that will certainly be ignored. And Dadmanly offers some more links.
For my part? I still say that "near certainty" can be translated easily as "Aw, sh*t" - but because I'm such a swell guy, I'll give TNR a shot at winning me over. They say that - well, let's quote ABC:
Franklin Foer, the editor of the New Republic, said that he has met Thomas here in the States and that he is "absolutely certain" that he is a soldier in Iraq. "Not an ounce of doubt," he told ABCNEWs.com. Asked about how he attempted to verify Thomas' military credentials, Foer said, "I've got many, many data points to back that up" although one of those proofs didn't include a military e-mail account.
As for the specific accounts in the stories, Foer said that the articles were rigorously fact-checked before they were published. "We showed the stories to people who'd been embedded in Iraq to make sure that it all smelled good. We talked to one of the members of his unit to confirm the woman, a female contractor. We talked to a medic who'd served in Iraq to make sure that a woman could be in an FOB. We spent a lot of time with him on the phone asking hard questions."
Even if you accept that TNR has an obligation to protect "Scott Thomas" from the court-martial his confessed actions earned him, none of those people should be so shielded. So why don't you cough up those names, Franklin?
The Plank, in response to half the blogosphere (see here and here for us) asking if they've rehired Stephen Glass:
Several conservative blogs have raised questions about the Diarist "Shock Troops," written by a soldier in Iraq using the pseudonym Scott Thomas. Whenever anybody levels serious accusations against a piece published in our magazine, we take those charges seriously. Indeed, we're in the process of investigating them. I've spoken extensively with the author of the piece and have communicated with other soldiers who witnessed the events described in the diarist. Thus far, these conversations have done nothing to undermine--and much to corroborate--the author's descriptions. I will let you know more after we complete our investigation.
(Bolding mine.)
Read on.
The New York Times (amusingly, via comments in the Plank):
The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows with “near certainty” that he is, in fact, a soldier.
Allow me to translate "near certainty" into Standard English for you: it means "Aw, sh*t."
Moe
PS: Of course, TNR can refute this any time they like, starting by answering Confederate Yankee's two questions...
TNR readers may have seen this story in the New York Times today. The story says that TNR knows with "near certainty" that Scott Thomas is a soldier in Iraq. In fact, we know this with absolute certainty.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank
You've added... nothing to the discussion.
The fact that "Scott Thomas" may be a soldier does not make his tales true. Let TNR and Foer respond to CY's two questions and we can put this to bed.
My money is that no dates will be forthcoming, ostensibly to protect "Thomas".
These tales have been deconstructed by guys who know the theater, who are in theater and who are willing to give their names. The stories are so outrageous, it's obvious they were made up to fed to the ignorant.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
The comments to that posting are pretty funny. My favorite: Are you conducting an investigation, or are you actually working on updating your resume?
proves the old adage (6 of 13)
posted by skeptic02 on 2007-07-24 02:14:06 [warn tnr] [respond]
It's never too late to find out if the stories you print are true. However, it is not clear what FF means when he uses passive voice to say, "Now that these questions have been raised, we’ve launched an inquiry."
He could mean, "Now that people are calling the stories bullsh[*]t, we would kinda like to know for ourselves, so we'll exercise the curiosity and skepticism that our readers ridiculously believe we should use *before* we run inflammatory stories."
Or he could mean, "Uh oh, people are realizing that this story is absolute bullsh[*]it, and since we all knew this Glassian day or reckoning would arrive we must implement Plan A, which is an internal investigation to buy time and polish our spin."
I don't know which would be worse, but either would be plausible and/or typical.
"Scott Thomas" - The New Republic's Winter Soldier
"I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."
John Kerry was in the military in Vietnam
But that does not make the above statements that he made true.
Just because someone is in a certain place does not mean anything they say is true.
...you to change your accusations to the AP from "made Jamil Hussein up" to "breached journalistic ethics" by using a pseudonym, after learning that AP did have a source who did exist and was issued an arrest warrant for talking to the AP.
Deal with the facts as presented by "Scott".
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
There were two questions during that episode.
[1] Did "Jamil Hussain" even exist?
[2] Were his stories to the AP true?
[1] has supposedly been answered, after the AP finally revealed (which they should have from the beginning) that "Jamil Hussain" is a pseudonym.
[2] has definitely not been answered. Only the Left is stupid enough to believe, like you, that "Jamil Hussain" not being a figment of the AP's imagination proves that four mosques were burnt down and six people were burnt alive.
This is AP's reporting that got them in trouble ...
Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
The savage revenge attack for Thursday's slaying of 215 people in the Shiite Sadr City slum occurred as members of the Mahdi Army militia burned four mosques, and several homes while killing an unknown number of Sunni residents in the once-mixed Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad.
Till today there is absolutely no proof that the four mosques were burnt down, considering that they are all still standing. There were also no records of any bodies of burn victims at the morgue following this supposed event.
So let me spell it out for you; conceding that Jamil/Jamal Hussain (who still denies he ever spoke to the AP) exists, there still remains the question as to the veracity of the 62 stories attributed to him by the AP - hardly any of which are/were confirmable and most of which were outside his station's jurisdiction, which should throw some suspicion on his detailed and intimate knowledge of them so soon after they occured.
In other words, the AP at best, negligently, at worst, deliberately, passed off fake news from a source of dubious quality - a source they could not produce on demand for a full month when challenged, who they apparently were not aware was using a pseudonym at the time.
And as for this "Scott Thomas" character, should it turn out that TNR is able to offer enough money to some guy over in Iraq to take ownership of their fiction (although, I do concede that he may very well truly exist), he will still have to prove every single word he has written about the mass grave, the dog killing Bradley driver and the IED disfigured female contractor. Franklin Foer and his crew are going to have to answer questions [1] and [2].
Good luck with that.
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.
I have absolutely no memory of ever writing a post discussing the Jamil Hussein matter: so either provide a link where I did so, or retract that statement.
In your next post.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Hadn't realized that it was personal with you. Sorry: I don't particularly remember individual trolls.
You know the drill. Bye...
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.
Brian H. Darling, 39, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32554-2005Apr6.html
I placed it in the center of the living room for everyone to see and smell! I'm not a good guest!
In other words (and not so gross) - Don't threadjack.
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The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson
Did you read the part in your link where it said conservative web blogs questioned the authenticity of the memo?
Imperfection is part of being human but it does seem liberals have a higher tolerance for lies than other people, caught above in one gross error you stumble on, determined to prove conservatives are as low as the left.
Quit while you're behind.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
I've been publishing a series of investigative articles about Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA (MAMZ/Kos) at the "Truth About Kos" Blog.
Over the last few days, a lot of people have been clicking in from RedState. I'm curious to know how they're finding out about the "Truth About Kos" blog. Does anybody know? Please respond in the comments at any one of the articles below:
Markos Alberto Moulitas ZÚÑIGA "Worked" at the CIA in 2001
The Indictment of Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA by Justice and History
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
If you read between the lines on this, ABC is not going to go out on a limb for TNR.
"Scott Thomas" - The New Republic's Winter Soldier
doesn't care. The smear "confirms" their prejudices about the military, prejudices that they have been nurturing since Vietnam, so they have no need of any further investigation.
John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course