All The New Republic had to do was say so in the first place when the stories of the “Baghdad Diarist” were found to be bogus. Not only by bloggers, but an Army investigation.

My god, this wasn’t rocket science. Yet in his coming clean Foer plays the blame game (the buck stops with the editor my friend). Nevertheless, it’s fourteen pages and could have been concise to one word.

“Idiot”. However, here’s the money quote:


“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.”

Not then, not now, no excuse. You need to resign.