Kevin Drum not quite up to analyzing TNR fact check

SCOTT THOMAS FOLLOWUP....Remember Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the soldier in Iraq who wrote a piece last month for the New Republic in which he recounted stories of (a) mocking a disfigured woman, (b) a fellow soldier who wore a piece of a child's skull he had found, and (c) another fellow soldier who ran over dogs with his Bradley fighting vehicle? Well, TNR has just put up their investigation into Beauchamp's piece, which included talking with "current and former soldiers, forensic experts, and other journalists who have covered the war extensively, [and] five other members of Beauchamp's company."

The result? They "all corroborated Beauchamp's anecdotes, which they witnessed or, in the case of one solider, heard about contemporaneously." The only error they uncovered was that one of the incidents apparently took place at an Army base in Kuwait, not Iraq.
(CBS News, Washington Monthly)

Oh, well if TNR says everything checked out then end of story. In fact, we must wonder why anybody questioned the story in the first place. After all, if it appeared in TNR then it must be true.

Drum's apparent disinclination to examine the nature of TNR's statement, and his failure to make his own mention of the admitted inaccuracy of the Thomas story is jaw-dropping.

I wonder if his inability to sniff out inconsistency and irrelevancy in an official statement characterizes his entire career in journalism?