A five-month saga pitting the right-wing blogosphere against The New Republic ended yesterday when, in a nearly 7,000-word article, editor Franklin Foer said he could no longer stand by narratives his magazine had published written by a soldier serving in Iraq. The soldier, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, wrote what many had considered questionable pieces for the magazine regarding the behavior of his comrades during their Iraq tour. In one controversial entry, Beauchamp describes an exchange between troops as they notice a disfigured woman in the chow hall:

Man, I can't eat like this," he said.
"Like what?" I said. "Chow hall food getting to you?"
"No--with that f*cking freak behind us!" he exclaimed, loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables. I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth.
"Are you kidding? I think she's *** hot!" I blurted out.
"What?" said my friend, half-smiling.
"Yeah man," I continued. "I love chicks that have been intimate--with IEDs. It really turns me on--melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses ... ."

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 Standard editor Bill Kristol as saying:

But what is revealing about this mistake is that the editors must have wanted to suspend their disbelief in tales of gross misconduct by American troops. How else could they have published such a farrago of dubious tales? Having turned against a war that some of them supported, the left is now turning against the troops they claim still to support."

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.

...they buried the lede. The last two paragraphs should have been the first...That is the bottom line, and TNR would have been better served to put it up front.

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

"The maxi-mea culpa runs more than 10 pages and thousands and thousands of words (self-pitying, rationalizing, messenger-blaming), but this is the belated bottom line: The Beauchamp stories are bullcrap."

Then there's this snarky reaction by Gawker:

"For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations that stories we published by an American soldier then serving in Iraq were fabricated," Foer's piece begins. Poor things! But we suppose that's what happens when you take four-and-a-half months to check out those accusations.

What's further interesting about the timing of Foer's piece are the recent accusations of fabrication in several National 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:

"In his [Smith's] wildly entertaining postings, he describes kidnap attempts, an armed incursion into Christian East Beirut by 5,000 armed Hezbollah fighters that was missed by every journalist in town, he also notes the presence of 200 armed Hezbollah fighters in downtown Beirut 'laying siege' to the prime ministers office...In a word, this is all insane."

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.