QOTD

UPDATE: below

Scott Thomas Beauchamp's fiction fooled The New Republic, as Capitalist Infidel summarizes in a comment on Confederate Yankee's post reprinting the Army's official debunking:

Beauchamp lied TNR died

MORE:

Michael Goldfarb, editor at WeeklyStandard.com, opened the issue as first to challenge Beauchamp's tales. At about 10 pm Monday Evening, Goldfarb ended it as well:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp--author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic's July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns--signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods--fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source.

Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad:

An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims.

According to the military source, Beauchamp's recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military's investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, "I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name."

Daily Pundit's Bill Quick has post-investigation questions:

The biggest mystery to me is why the mainstream media has any credibility left at all. Maybe its users aren’t looking for credibilty any more. Just reinforcement. Perhaps the MSM has become a cult, supported on faith alone, little more than the latest incarnation of the Holy Church of the True Believer.

Answers to Bill: 1) They don't; 2) True; 3) True; and 4) True--I call it the First Church of St. Dowd.