Blogoland

WingNet fires back explaining that, No! No, no, no. They never said Scott Thomas Beauchamp was a fake. Never. Ever. OK?

When pressed to provide a specific quote from any conservative blog stating that Scott Thomas didn’t really exist, was fabricated, or was an imposter, these and other liberal bloggers have utterly failed to do so.

Why they failed should now be obvious: they made up these claims themselves.

Well, as they say, Sadly, No!

And might I add to that list these brain nuggets from the brightest lights of Blogtopia...

Rathergate:

He is a fake. This much has been documented.

Red State:

Whoops. A media outlet has once again been caught in a Jesse MacBeth-esque attempt to falsely smear US soldiers [MacBeth never served in Iraq, but claimed he did-- jm]

Blackfive:

The New Republic's Correspondent a Fake? [The punctuation hedge! -- jm]

Don Surber:

The New Republic has published some stuff by a “Scott Thomas,” who may or may not be an American soldier in Iraq. Then again, Jessie McBeth was a fraud (he was cut from the military during basic training, not an Iraqi War veteran). [Note that this post has disappeared from Surber's site; I'm linking to a cached version -- jm]

American "Thinker":

It turns out that there is a plausible candidate for who "Scott Thomas" might be: Clifton Hicks. The evidence is not conclusive, but it is fairly suggestive [Wrong! -- jm]

Next question?

UPDATE: And here's some more!

Hot Air:

I think Ace’s theory, that TNR plucked this guy from their comments section when he professed some combat experience and hinted at dark tales of American stormtroopers run amok, is more likely but we’ll see. [this comes at the end of a discussion of whether the diarist was a creative writing student -- jm]

Flopping Aces:

Now there are evil people in all walks of life but if your [sic] gonna write a story about such people doing things that shock people at least ensure that its [sic] plausible. None of what this "Scott Thomas" has written is plausible, not from people who served in the same camp around the same time nor from people who know intimately the type of equipment he describes. I can already smell 60 Minutes itching to cover this one....

Guidons, Guidons, Guidons!:

The Fake Diary of a Fake Soldier

If you find any other examples from the Supersleuths of the Internet, let me know.

LATER: Fixed Surber cached link.

VERY MUCH LATER: Surber restores the link to the original post, and provides his own explanation for why he initially made it disappear:

I pulled this post down, but after Scott Thomas was found to be “real” — a real big fat lefty liar — a few little minds asked why I pulled it.

Good question. I have nothing to hide.

Hilarious. Regrettably, that's not much of an explanation at all. But if it allows Mr. Surber to sleep at night, good for him.