A Soldier S Articles Refuted

Soon after “Shock Troops,” the piece that contained this anecdote, was published in July, conservatives questioned the accuracy of the reporting–and lambasted The New Republic for the unsubstantiated “anti-war” message of its stories. Foer quotes Weekly Standardeditor Bill Kristol as saying:

While criticism for The New Republic has continued over the past five months, almost equally vehement is criticism of Foer’s recent article. Bob Bateman of Media Matters highlights his belief Foer waited too long into his lengthy article to actually give his position on Beauchamp.

Slate provides a great roundup of conservative reactions to Foer’s article. Among those are these words from Michelle Malkin:

Then there’s this snarky reaction by Gawker:

What’s further interesting about the timing of Foer’s piece are the recent accusations of fabrication in severalNational Review stories concerning violence in Lebanon. The author, former Marine W. Thomas Smith, is basically coming off as the conservative version of Beauchamp. As the Huffington Post reports one journalist saying:

Both the New York Times and Washington Post’s articles reacting to The New Republic article take significant time to also explain the National Review controversy.