The e-mails speak for themselves. But they are worth reading. I promise.

My initial e-mail:

Jamie,

Tim Rutten writes in today’s column:

A report in the Weekly Standard alleged that, as part of the Army investigation, the private also had signed a statement totally disavowing his piece. When the New Republic inquired about such a statement, an Army spokesman denied it existed.

Since then, Beauchamp has remained in Iraq with his unit and the magazine has been unable to communicate with him.

An Army spokesman denied the existence of the statement on August 7.

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/07/tnr-challenges-weekly-standards-claim-that-beauchamp-has-recanted/

Since then, the magazine has been able to communicate with Beauchamp three times, by the editors’ own admission.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2007/10/26/a-scott-beauchamp-update.aspx

This is a fairly basic error that calls into question Rutten’s grasp of the facts on this controversy. I think a correction is order.

Patrick Frey

She responded with this:

Thanks for your inquiry, but I’m not sure that I’m clear on what you are asking: You say that the column erred because “the magazine has been able to communicate with Beauchamp three times, by the editors’ own admission.” The column itself not only refers to those communications, but cites New Republic sources that detail those communications.

Or am I misunderstanding your point?

Jamie Gold
Readers’ Representative

I responded:

Jamie,

My point is this. Rutten’s column contained this line:

Since then, Beauchamp has remained in Iraq with his unit and the magazine has been unable to communicate with him.

And that line is factually false.

That is my point.

The proof is in my previous e-mail. The “then” in the phrase “Since then” is August 7 — the date that the military spokesman denied the existence of a Beauchamp disavowal. “Since then,” the magazine has been able to communicate with Beauchamp, on no fewer than three separate occasions.

You appear to contend that Rutten’s false claim does not merit a correction, because Rutten disclosed one (not all) of those communications in his column — namely, Beauchamp’s conference call with TNR editors. However, a) the phrase as written is still false, and b) it is also misleading, as Rutten did not make it clear that the communication in question took place after the spokesman’s denial, for which Rutten provided no date.

Perhaps an analogy will make the point clearer. Let’s pretend that I write a blog post in which I say this:

Since John Carroll’s departure from the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper has been unable to win a Pulitzer Prize.

If, later in my post, I make a reference to the paper’s 2007 Pulitzer, that doesn’t render my claim accurate. The claim is still false.

Nor would including information about the 2007 Pulitzer necessarily prevent readers from being misled. After all, a reader unfamiliar with the tenure of the L.A. Times‘s past editors might not know that Carroll left well before 2007. (Just as the reader of Rutten’s column might not know that the military spokesman made the referenced denial on August 7 — a fact that Rutten does not state in his piece.)

Your contention appears to be that a false claim can somehow be transformed into a true one, if the writer includes some (but not all) information that tends to show the claim is false. This is logically untenable.

If I have caused your eyes to glaze over, then simply go back and re-read the first four short lines of this e-mail. My point is succinctly and accurately stated there. The rest of this e-mail is nothing more than a clarification and explanation of that simple point.

Please let me know if The Times plans to issue a correction.

Yours truly,

Patrick Frey
https://patterico.com

P.S. I have four more factual errors from the same Rutten column to tell you about. I’ll write a separate e-mail about them. This e-mail is already long enough.

And my most recent e-mail:

Jamie,

As promised, here is my e-mail setting forth four other factual inaccuracies in Tim Rutten’s recent column on the Beauchamp affair.

1) Rutten wrote that “the magazine determined that the incident involving the disfigured woman was concocted and corrected that . . .”

That is false.

Although the story may well have been “concocted,” the magazine has never admitted that. Rather, the magazine admitted only that the incident took place in Kuwait, and not Iraq. Although that fact undercut the entire point of the story, the magazine never said that the story was a fabrication. Rather, they called it an “error.”

2) Rutten wrote: “He described the ridicule of a disfigured Iraqi woman . . .”

That is false.

The woman has never been described as Iraqi.

3) Rutten said: “He described . . . attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles . . .”

That is false — or, at a minimum, materially misleading.

Beauchamp described far more than “attempts” to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles. Beauchamp alleged at least three actual killings of dogs — which caused many bloggers to question whether such killings were possible. (Such questions were bolstered by statements made by a spokesman for the manufacturer.)

4) Rutten said:

It was interesting to note that Drudge provided links to the transcripts and report but not to the purported “Memorandum for Record.”

That is false.

The Memorandum for Record was included among the documents posted by Drudge, and is still readable at many of the various sites that copied and reposted the documents. For one example, go here:

http://www2.nationalreview.com/dest/2007/10/24/2.pdf

and scroll to the last two pages. The Memorandum of Concern is the second to last page. The Memorandum for Record, acknowledging receipt of the Memorandum of Concern, is the last page.

That’s four more verifiable inaccuracies in Rutten’s column, bringing the total to five.

I await your response.

Yours truly,

Patrick Frey
https://patterico.com

As always, when I hear something, you’ll hear something.

P.S. I have copied Rutten on every e-mail. So he is fully aware of the errors I am describing.