memeorandum: A Statement on Scott Thomas Beauchamp (The New Republic)

11:30 PM ET, August 2, 2007

Top Items:

A Statement on Scott Thomas Beauchamp — Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a U.S. Army private serving in Iraq. He came to THE NEW REPUBLIC's attention through Elspeth Reeve, a TNR reporter-researcher, whom he later married. Over the course of the war, we have tried to provide our readers with a sense of Iraq as it is seen by the troops.

Ace / Ace of Spades HQ:

TNR Claims (Partial) Vindication — Read it all. — I'll start with this: … Error? Mistake? He was off by an entire country and something like nine months? — This is what TNR terms an "error," a "mistake"? And when they "fact-checked" this beforehand, how did their …

Discussion: The Jawa Report and Gateway Pundit

Dean Barnett / Townhall.com:

Franklin Foer and Co. Keep Digging — At long last, The New Republic's editors have released a statement regarding the Beauchamp affair. It is a maddening piece of work - evasive, misleading, self-pitying and deliberately distortive. By all means, read the whole thing. But do so critically and carefully.

Discussion: The Corner and Washington Monthly

Michelle Malkin:

The Scott Thomas Beauchamp saga: The fallibility of TNR's fact-checkers — Update 9:30pm Eastern. Dean Barnett boils it down: … Update 8:49pm Eastern. This is Camp Buehring in Kuwait. In response to one of the commenters below, Camp Buehring is a separate facility/staging area …

Discussion: Power Line, Bookworm Room and Confederate Yankee

National Review: Say What? [Stephen Spruiell] — TNR's editors on an "error" …

Michael Goldfarb / Weekly Standard:
TNR's "Investigation" Reveals Beauchamp Was Always a Monster

Discussion: Shakespeare's Sister and Firedoglake

Nick Coleman / Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Public anger will follow our sorrow — The cloud of dust above the Mississippi that rose after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday evening has dissipated. But there are other dark clouds still hanging over Minneapolis and Minnesota. — The cloud of dust above the Mississippi …

Discussion: Power Line, The Sideshow, The Nation, Donklephant, Pharyngula, Fraters Libertas, Ed Driscoll.com and Mercury Rising

Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Recovery suspended; Pawlenty calls for statewide bridge inspections — Divers were pulled from the murky and fast-moving waters of the Mississippi River Thursday afternoon before any bodies could be recovered from the wreckage of Wednesday's I-35W bridge collapse.

Associated Press:

Minn. bridge problems uncovered in 1990 — MINNEAPOLIS - Minnesota officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge that plummeted into the Mississippi River was "structurally deficient," yet they relied on a strategy of patchwork fixes and stepped-up inspections.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Inside Minnesota Politics, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Blue Crab Boulevard, PoliBlog (TM), TwinCities.com, Connecting.the.Dots, DownWithTyranny! and Outside The Beltway

Rose Garden / White House:
President Bush Offers Sympathies and Assistance to Minneapolis …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, The Carpetbagger Report, Greatscat!, Thought Theater, Comments From Left Field, Shakespeare's Sister, Best of Both Worlds, The Reaction and Scared Monkeys

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters: This Could Have Waited — It's not that I completely disagree …

Jon Krawczynski / Associated Press:
Hopes Dim in Minneapolis for Survivors

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Hullabaloo, Eschaton and Wake up America

Associated Press:

Obama says use of nuclear weapons to fight al-Qaida 'not on the table,' — WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons «in any circumstance. — «I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons …

Discussion: Say Anything, Flopping Aces, National Review, Don Surber, The Sundries Shack, Open Left, Hennessy's View, MyDD, The Glittering Eye, Blogs of War, doubleplusundead, Ian Schwartz and Liberal Values

The Politico:

Obama on nukes: policy or character? (Updated) — The latest Obama story, from an interview with The Associated Press, isn't online yet, but get ready: It's an interview* in which Obama initially rules out the use of nuclear weapons entirely, then seems to take it back:

Discussion: Election Central, Taylor Marsh, Liberal Values, eyeon08.com, The Anonymous Liberal, TalkLeft and CNN Political Ticker

Agence France Presse:

Pakistan slams 'ignorant' Obama attack warning — ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of "sheer ignorance" for threatening to launch US military strikes against Al-Qaeda on Pakistani soil. — Obama warned Wednesday that if he is elected president …

ABCNEWS:

Presidential Race Goes Nuclear — Clinton Implies Obama's Comments Were Careless — Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., sparred over foreign policy as the former first lady implied that the first term senator's comments on the use of nuclear weapons were careless and unpresidential.

Discussion: MSNBC, Open Left, The Atlantic Online and Political Punch

Martin Kady II / The Politico:

Reid: Bridge collapse is 'wake-up call' — It took less than a day for the disastrous bridge collapse in Minneapolis to turn into a political uproar on Capitol Hill. — As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) opened the Thursday session of the Senate, he warned that the bridge disaster was a …

Discussion: Townhall.com, Sister Toldjah and PrairiePundit

Jennifer Parker / Political Radar:
Blame-Game Begins on Infrastructure Spending

Discussion: The Sundries Shack and The Democratic Daily

Agence France Presse:

Gates says US underestimated depth of Sunni-Shiite divisions — The US administration underestimated the difficulty of having Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites agree on key national reconciliation measures, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates admitted Thursday. — At the end of a regional tour …

Discussion: The Belmont Club

David S. Cloud / New York Times:
Gates Offers Blunt Assessment of Iraqi Political Progress

Discussion: Prairie Weather

David Stout / New York Times:

With Rove Absent, Aide Is Grilled by Senate Panel — The Senate Judiciary Committee grilled a young political aide from the White House today about the firings of nine United States attorneys and voiced disdain for a man who was not there: the aide's boss, Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser.

Discussion: The Politico, CNN Political Ticker and Prairie Weather

Ed Henry / CNN:
Rove a no-show at hearing

Discussion: TPMCafe blogs

Tariq Panja / Associated Press:

Glasgow terror suspect dies from burns — LONDON - A man critically burned after allegedly crashing an explosive-laden Jeep into Glasgow Airport died of his injuries Thursday, Strathclyde Police said. — Kafeel Ahmed, 27, had been in the hospital for a month with burns from the alleged attack on June 30 …

Discussion: The Jawa Report and Little Green Footballs

Byron York / National Review Online:

The Vast Left-Wing Establishment — Today more than a thousand Kossacks — adherents of the left-wing website DailyKos — are gathering for their annual convention in Chicago. It's the second YearlyKos, in circumstances far different from the first, held in June 2006 in Las Vegas.

Discussion: The Newshoggers, Reason Magazine, Brian Beutler and Rising Hegemon

Daniela Deane / Washington Post:

Out of the Theater, Into the Courtroom — Jhannet Sejas and her boyfriend were celebrating her 19th birthday by taking in a matinee showing of the hit movie "Transformers" at the theater at Ballston Common mall. — Sejas was enjoying the movie so much that she decided to film a short clip …