More Developments In Troop Bashing

As mentioned here yesterday, the recent spate of shameful military bashing rhetoric has become more acute. However, investigations in the Blogosphere into the scurrilous allegations continue:

TNR's Shock Troops

Instapundit notes:

SCOTT THOMAS AND JAMIL HUSSEIN: Some sensible thoughts at The Mudville Gazette. "The New Republic's new 'war hero' is not exposing bad behavior of others that's condoned by his seniors - he's confessing to that behavior himself. Since the New Republic won't release his identity, we can only conclude that either they support this sort of behavior by US troops or know that he isn't one. Neither option speaks well for anyone involved."

Hot Air has more on the TNR controversy, and how the New York Times scrubbed its own story.

Even more from LGF, which asks "Is the Times correcting a mistake, or trying to run interference for the New Republic? It’s long past the point where I’d give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the former."

Powerline also weighs in on the New York Times' "fix."

A response to the TNR story by a US Army Officer can also be found here.

Blogger John Barnes thinks the pseudonym "Scott Thomas" belongs to an MFA writing student.

Finally, Michelle Malkin rounds up developments, and relates a story of the sneering Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic, and what he said when conservative talk show hosts headed to Iraq to see the situation on the ground themselves:

“This is the most pathetic thing I’ve heard in a long time. They should be ashamed of themselves,” Peter Beinart, editor of left-leaning The New Republic magazine, said.

“They have no idea what journalism is, and to pretend they are journalists is laughable,” Beinart said. “You do not achieve victory by not facing reality. I think these are the kinds of people that will lead us to lose there.”

Also, from Monday, this scathing critique of The Nation piece by Chris Hedges, which I somehow missed until today:

** Technically, as a reader notes below, abusing a corpse in military as well as civilian life is a crime. In this case, I’d apply the legal principle of who cares? The Nation article, at least before I got bored with reading about low-grade offenses, was short on offenses that couldn’t be addressed with a simple “cut that out,” or improved intelligence. I’d add that the reader, a dear old friend, falls into the “genocide preferred” camp, as he would prefer Saddam Hussein (genocide tally 500,000 to 1.5 million, depending how you count) were still in power. That might explain the failure to appreciate that war-stressed soldiers goofing with a corpse, while distasteful, is not a big deal. Unlike, for example, this or this. This is the kind of thinking that has people convinced the United States is practicing torture, illegal detention, illegal wiretapping and wholesale trampling on rights, exercised over same illusions while ignoring threats posed by our enemy and taking for granted vile actions of same.