Article

2007-07-27 Home Front: Culture Wars

Pvt. Beauchamp makes the Washington Post

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-07-27 13:06|| || Front Page|| [11141 views ] Top
File under: Iraqi Insurgency

#1 TW: my respect for you is huge, but I won't let that stop me fact-checking your ~~ass~~comments:
Stephen Glass is the guy that duped TNR, Philip Glass is a minimalist [some would say alleged] composer.

Posted by xbalanke 2007-07-27 14:30|| 2007-07-27 14:30|| Front Page Top

#2 TNR picked him not for his talent but for his slant. Do think a story about troops repairing or building a school would get published? I have a sneaking feeling that Pv2 Beauchamp is about to get a whole lot rougher.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2007-07-27 14:47|| 2007-07-27 14:47|| Front Page Top

#3 xbalanke dear, thank you, and please continue to do so. I lose less credibility when one of my stupid mistakes is caught early and publicly than if I continue enthusiastically spouting nonsense. (And while I would argue that Philip Glass is a legitimate composer in that he writes compositions that are subsequently publicly performed, his pseudointellectual excretions are a large part of the reason classical music now struggles for an audience. Although admittedly I much prefer Bach and Mozart to the modern stuff because it's so much more fun to play -- my high school orchestra once did a piece by Sibelius: the second violins played pages of slurred open D string, alternating with the occasional G, or so I remember it.)

Posted by trailing wife 2007-07-27 14:50|| 2007-07-27 14:50|| Front Page Top

#4 TW, you're too kind. I actually like some of Glass's non-vocal work - when I'm in the mood. I bought the Koyaanisqatsi DVD mainly for the soundtrack.

I wonder if I can still enlist in Instapundit's Army of Pedantic Geeks?

Posted by xbalanke 2007-07-27 15:09|| 2007-07-27 15:09|| Front Page Top

#5 An argument of pendantic geeks, surely? At least that's what it's like in my house when my two self-labelled grammar nazi daughters and I go at it.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-07-27 15:21|| 2007-07-27 15:21|| Front Page Top

#6 Or pedantic geeks. Today seems to be stupid error day. :-(

Posted by trailing wife 2007-07-27 15:22|| 2007-07-27 15:22|| Front Page Top

#7 Beauchamp's writings may have been fake, but they were accurate.

Posted by Dan Rather">Dan Rather 2007-07-27 16:16|| 2007-07-27 16:16|| Front Page Top

#8 At least that's what it's like in my house when my two self-labelled grammar nazi daughters and I go at it.

Sounds like a setup for a Monty Python sketch.

Back on topic: Foer also said Beauchamp "has put himself in significant jeopardy" and "lost his lifeline to the rest of the world" because military officials have taken away his laptop, cellphone and e-mail privileges.

Oh, the humanity! Beauchamp's probably safer than he's been since entering Iraq being as he won't be going on any missions.

"It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard's efforts to press an ideological agenda."

Does Foer have a progressive-think BS generator to write this crap?

Posted by xbalanke 2007-07-27 16:23|| 2007-07-27 16:23|| Front Page Top

#9 I would be extremely interested to hear what some of pvt B.'s squad mates have to say about him..... and his writings.

Posted by Omeretle Protector of the Brontosaurs7618 2007-07-27 16:38|| 2007-07-27 16:38|| Front Page Top

#10 "It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard's efforts to press an ideological agenda."

Posted by Hupalet Prince of the Nebraskans3594 2007-07-27 16:38|| 2007-07-27 16:38|| Front Page Top

#11 I meant:

"It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard's efforts to press an ideological agenda."

"It's really unfortunate that we got caught trying to pawn fiction off as fact."

Posted by Glusoter Borgia5444 2007-07-27 16:40|| 2007-07-27 16:40|| Front Page Top

#12 Actually, the fact that Pvt. Beauchamp is in a unit with Bradleys makes his ignorance even more frightening. How could he not know about the engine on the righthand side? He must really be ignorant of his military craft.

Al

Posted by Frozen Al 2007-07-27 17:11|| 2007-07-27 17:11|| Front Page Top

#13 Anyone notice the Tu quoque fallacy?

Accuse your critics of pressing a political agenda with their criticism when your boy has been caught 'telling his story' to push a political agenda.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/tuquoque.html

Posted by WTF 2007-07-27 18:03|| 2007-07-27 18:03|| Front Page Top

#14 Besides being a really bad, derivative writer, he is also appaulingly unobservant one. How caught up in yourself do you have to be, to not notice that the Bradley makes a most noticable racket. My daughter about fell over laughing, over the account of it running over a sleeping dog. ("What, was the dog dead, already, that it didn't hear it coming? And cutting it clean in half? So was it a dog the size of a shetland pony?)
Most appauling of all, is that he didn't realize that nothing in the military happens in a vacuum. Someone else is almost always there, most likely, a lot of someone elses, given an identifiable unit, location and time frame. Kind of sad, that idiot-writer-boy couldn't figure this out.
My daughter and I agree... an idiot E-2, with delusions of adequacy, and bigger ambitions than he has the talent to achieve.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2007-07-27 18:33|| www.celiahayes.com]">[www.celiahayes.com] 2007-07-27 18:33|| Front Page Top

#15 Sgt Mom,

I was Brad CFV crew.

I laughed my ass off at the errors in those posts.

And posted the debunking here.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-07-27 20:02|| 2007-07-27 20:02|| Front Page Top

#16 Hear it? Heel, if it was going fast enough to kill the dog before it could move, you damn well FELT it coming blocks away.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-07-27 20:03|| 2007-07-27 20:03|| Front Page Top

#17 Pv2 Beauchamp now calls his critics "Chickenhawks." Confirms my point made yesterday that there's a sense of superiority among some of those that have worn the uniform over those of us that have not. But last I checked citizen-soldiers get one vote per election, one vote as a member of any jury, and have the same laws that apply to the rest of, apply to them.

Simply stated, wearing a uniform does not make you a better citizen or person per se. Here's a guy that assumed the uniform only to bad mouth his fellow soldiers while those of who love this country even though we've not served are defamed by this Quisling as "Chickenhawks." Well give me a million chickenhawks over this ratbag anyday. At least we're not aiding the enemy by providing anti-American propaganda that will be used by insurgent terrorists to justify the murder of captured American troops. In such a future scenario, Jihadists will say they executed a U.S. soldier as payback for our troops allegedly wearing Iraqi children skull-tops. And where would these Jihadis have gotten such a lurid tale?

Posted by Sigmund Freud 2007-07-27 22:30|| 2007-07-27 22:30|| Front Page Top

#18 Chickenhawk? LMAO!

Been there, done that and got the T-shirt from the PX.

I'll call him what HE is: chickenshit! Friggen mechanic, never left the mopo from whats coming out now.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-07-27 23:57|| 2007-07-27 23:57|| Front Page Top

23:57 OldSpook
23:49 OldSpook
23:37 FOTSGreg
23:32 Anonymoose
23:29 trailing wife
23:16 Zenster
22:41 trailing wife
22:34 Frank G
22:33 Old Patriot
22:31 Frank G
22:30 Sigmund Freud
22:24 Procopius2k
22:24 twobyfour
22:14 gromgoru
22:14 trailing wife
22:14 Procopius2k
22:10 Army Life
22:08 Procopius2k
22:08 trailing wife
22:00 Anonymoose
21:53 gromgoru
21:40 Zenster
21:30 trailing wife
21:25 Frank G