I've watched Soltz on TV for the past few years and have been in near-unanimous agreement with him (it doesn't hurt him that he's so fricken hot! >:-}~). I even encouraged my dad, a Korean War vet, to join his group.

That said, he didn't do himself, KOS, or the anti-war movement any favors here.

Dissent IS patriotic, whatever side of the argument you're on.

Right-wingers like to hide behind symbols of authority. They use them to advance their often less-than-patriotic agenda.

Unfortunately, they're the first to discard those symbols when it suits them.

What a joke!

Let's clear up a few things here. First of all, there was no "shouting match" because the soldier's mike was turned off the second it was determined that he was not of the same mind as the rest of the folks there. He. was. silenced. The only one shouting was Jon Soltz who showed the world that he has quite a temper and quite a short fuse, and is a most illiberal liberal. Even Wes Clark was horrified by Soltz's outburst as you can hear him in the background saying, "Oh, no. No, don't..." It's all on the video; check it out.

You said, "...Private Beauchamp('s)...story has been proven true in virtually all respects, with the singular error (sic) misremembering the location of one of the stories."

Are you freakin' serious? The Army has concluded their investigation and determined that Beauchamp's story is totally bogus. I realize that you probably will dismiss their investigation as yet another "vast right-wing conspiracy to keep the man down," but do you really consider Beauchamp's misremembering to be a trivial point? He claimed the incident happened in Iraq, but his anonymous buddies that TNR supposedly spoke to seemed to remember something like that maybe happening in Quwait. Wow. That was 9 months earlier and in a totally different country! Big difference if you ask me. What is really important in all of that is this: Beauchamp claimed that it was the horrors of war that caused him to behave in such an obnoxious way---yet according to his "anonymous buddies," this incident happened BEFORE HE EVER GOT TO IRAQ! And we're all supposed to be cool with that? Get real. He is a liar.

Finally, getting back to our uniformed soldier. It might have been an argument between two soldiers but for the fact that the uniformed soldier's mike was turned off and others in the audience were trying to drown him out. It is difficult to hear him at all over the shouting. So it was indeed a room full of people against him. Soltz's mike was on, and he used his pulpit to threaten the soldier with disciplinary action and he quite clearly called him out as well. Frankly, what he did meets the legal standard for assault. Again, it's all on the video.

Odd that Soltz would have a problem with a soldier speaking out in a political forum while in uniform. Maybe he didn't get Kos' memo. From the lips of the Holy Kosinator himself:

"He has every right enshrined under the Constitution, including those of free speech and peaceful assembly. And anyone that thinks otherwise, quite frankly, is legitimately and objectively un-American."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/2/142332/0502

I guess in KosWorld free speech is only for those on their side of the aisle.

Private Beauchamp accosted a disfigured woman before he even set foot in Iraq. But somehow it was due to 'war fatigue'.

The left as ever, shows an uncanny disdain for FACTS.

Thanks Cuchulian.

"The Army has concluded their investigation and determined that Beauchamp's story is totally bogus."

As John Cole points out, the Army's investigation was limited to asking the platoon mates if any would corroborate, on the record, the incidents. Unsurprisingly, no one volunteered that they'd engaged in these activities to authorities that can punish them. TNR, on the other hand, got corroboration from the same folks when they could speak with no fear of Article 15s and further investigation. The Army's official conclusion is that they can't substantiate the incidents, not that they categorically didn't happen.

Re: the incident, Solz may have reacted inappropriately, but the Soldier who showed up in uniform at what's arguably a political event made a huge error in judgment. Servicemembers are supposed to avoid any appearance of either acting as a military spokesperson when they're not empowered to do so, or getting involved in a political argument (and asserting that "the surge is working" at an event like YearlyKos certainly shades into a political argument). Even separated/retired members are not supposed to appear in uniform except under certain circumstances (although I think the IRR member who wore a non-specific fatigue uniform without nametags as part of an act of political theater shouldn't have been prosecuted since those could be bought pretty much anywhere).

I've heard quite a few say they support the troops that just doesn't include actually listening to what they have to say, unless it's anti-Bush or war.

I appreciated Klein's initial post because it was actually a professional straight factual account.

To include:

No one at the Kos panel searched out the questioner's wedding registry, no one at the Kos panel dug up his old poetry to embarrass him, no one at the Kos panel speculated on what a terrible soldier he is and how much he must have slowed his unit down, no one at the Kos panel unearthed his MySpace page, no one at the Kos panel said "he'd better watch his ass."

Is pretty petty and lame considering the slimy treatment of just off the top Jeff Gannon, Matt Sanchez, Ben Domenech etc., etc. by the left. I recall searching desperately into his past and aspersions of incest because he was home-schooled.

Jon Soltz, the head of Vote Vets

You mean the Jon Soltz who is pictured in his uniform on Vote Vets?

Daily Kos the double standard continues!

I love it!

"didn't like" Beaudiddly or whatever his name is = proved to be, as Uncle Jimbo so eloquently stated, "a lying bag of shit".

Actually Mr. Klein,

Beauchamp was proven to be the dung beetle I called him.

In the instance of the troop in uniform I stated that it was certainly wrong to attend a political event in uniform, even if it may not be strictly against regulations. The panel member Soltz was a complete ass in his reaction.

PJ Media gets video of soldier at Kos

Cordially,

Uncle J

It's amazing how Klein managed to fit so many lies and distortions into such a short article. It seems that when reality doesn't suit, his hateful mind just weaves an alternate one.

It's amazing how Klein managed to fit so many lies and distortions into such a short article. It seems that when reality doesn't suit him, his hateful mind just weaves an alternate one.

Ezra--tu quoque arguments are always weak. The fact that the other side behaves poorly is no justification for our side to behave poorly. TBS, eliminating tu quoque arguments would dramatically shrink the word count of the blogosphere across the spectrum, but for those of us trying both to keep up and get our work done, that could well be an advantage.

First, it wasn't that Beauchamps articles weren't "liked", it was because they stank of lies and leftist bs. Second, give the Kos kids some time, they'll be all over this soldier, count on it. Third, I find it interesting that the focus has been on his being in uniform, something that under different circumstances probably wouldn't be an issue, rather than what he had to say.

Kos's "15 minutes" will be up as soon as Hillary wins the primary....then the Democrats won't know who any of you are.

Good Lord! Ezra is in even greater denial than Jon Foer is on this whole phony Scott Thomas Beauchamp story. By his own words, whether made up or otherwise, he has proven himself to be one great big poopy-head...perhaps exceeded in his awfulness by Mr. Klein himself.

Wow, look at all the angry winger trolls. Guys, I know that you think everything in Iraq is super fantastic happy time, but TNR substantiated what Beauchamp said happened. So instead of trying to deny reality, why don't you join up and request service in Iraq so you can participate in the glorious surge? After all, its making things go so well and all. Oh, wait, let me guess, you have a nagging knee injury or something

On the other hand, simply asserting we're better than the right isn't enough, Ezra. I feel the same reaction to that as I feel when I hear a rightwinger say in regard to torture, "Well, look at what Al Queda does." The standard for the US should not be "let's be better than Al Queda" we are obviously that, but we want to set our own high moral standard and adhere to it. Similarly, saying "Solz is better than Michelle Malkin" is simply not enough.

"And yet, merely a week after the Right did all that to Private Beauchamp -- whose story has been proven true in virtually all respects"

I just love parody sites like this. Do the next one on how Bush singlehandedly cut off bolts on the I35 bridge.

"why don't you join up and request service in Iraq so you can participate in the glorious surge?"

A chickenhawk argument! How original! And effective!

Tell you what, I'll sign up as soon as you fly over to Iraq to serve as a human shield to protect innocent civilians from evil soldiers like Scott Thomas.

As the video shows, the uniformed soldier was given the floor to speak freely and uninterrupted for nearly a minute and a half. He made a long statement about the surge while all the panelists and the audience sat silently and listened.

Nobody was silenced. There is no issue here.

If you watch, you can hear the uniformed soldier become more belligerent and then Soltz decides to answer him. Soltz was clearly offended by the soldier using "my uniform" for a political statement. Such a statement participating in Yearly Kos can be understood as an expression by the Bush Administration until the soldier is disciplined.

Again, nobody was silenced. The uniformed soldier was patiently accommodated by the Soltz for 87 seconds.

Transcript:

Soltz: "I just want to close out here. First, I want to thank the panel. I want to thank everyone who came, General Clark-"

[inaudible shout from the audience]

Soltz: "Out of time-"

Other panelist: [barely audible] “Let him-“

Uniform: [barely audible] “No I’ll be fast.” [keeps talking continuously throughout…]

Soltz: “Listen, if you- let me make this really clear to you sergeant…Hoowel. You are in the uniform of our country. If you ask me a political question, Ima’ take you outside- Listen to me. –And we’re gonna have a captain- Listen to me. Hey so- hey- …Hey! You want me to come down there? Hold on a second sergeant. [Gen. Clark may be saying “no, no” not clear who to] Let me come down here and talk to you real quick off-line. But I wanna let you know, If you say something political- If you say something political, If you use my uniform-our uniform-of our country to say something political, for or against, I will come down and talk to you.

[here Captain Soltz decides to give the solder the floor for a period of 87 seconds. The uniformed soldier proceeds to make his case, which is inaudible on the upstream.tv video because the microphones in the room are on an automatic limiter which silences them unless tripped by a direct sound]

Other panelist: “Look. Its not about the number-“

Soltz: “Stand down. …I just wanna thank- Look. Before we get into a real Army issue, I believe, that a great unit in the military has discipline. That we’ve got good units and bad units. For the sake of the Army, I wanna thank everybody who’s come here. I wanna thank the Kos panel. I wanna thank our panelists. For the sergeant, I will see you outside. I want the name of your commander and your first seargent. You will never, ever use my uniform again in the name of political purposes. Thank you.”

[Soltz stands and leaves]

[applause]

Female Panelist: “And come- Come to the-”

Clark: “Let me say something on this. Ther’r a lot of people here who love this country. And there are a lot of people who may have differing views one from another. And we support, as elements-members of this community, everyone’s right to speak. And so I think here, what we gotta be careful of, is we don’t get our military members and people who have military associations, mixed up in politics in a way that’s improper, for them. This one’s gonna have to be looked at. I don’t know what the right answer, to it is right now.

“I know that people who serve in Iraq, just like I did when I was in Viet Nam, have very strong feelings about what they’re doing. Most of ‘em believe in it, I hope. The polls show, I guess 30% really believe, 30% aren’t sure, and 30% believe it’s failing. At least that’s the most recent poll I’ve seen. But people say morale is good during the surge, I hope it is. And I’m proud of the men and women in uniform. But I do think it’s really important, that we keep our military institutions separate and out of the political questions.

“When general McCarther spoke at the military academy in 1962, he was very clear to the cadets then. He said “these great questions of state are not your concern.” They’re not yours. They’re not yours. You can study them in an academic sense. You don’t participate in them as a member of the armed forces. You participate as an individual.

“And that’s the issue which Jon is trying to discuss with the sergeant here this morning. It is an issue of propriety. It’s also an issue of legality. Thank you all for being here. I hope you bear with us as we work our way through this issue. Thank you.

[applause]

"Nobody was silenced. There is no issue here."

Exactly. Even an idiot (though perhaps not one of these whining rightwingers) could tell that just by looking at the video.

The guy had his say.

What the rightwingers expect is for someone with their views to completely dominate the discussion -- kind of like what they're used to on Fox News or Talk Radio.

When that isn't the case, they whine about "censorship".

For a rightwinger, it's censorship when they can't dominate the discussion. It's what they're used to, it's what they expect.

Charles Johnson delivered a beautiful smackdown to your pathetic screed. I suggest you head over to LGF Ezra, and get yourself acquainted with the facts on the Beauchump/TNR scandal. Liberalism....it really is a mental illness.

head over to LGF...and get yourself acquainted with the facts

I literally have no answer to this.

The Army has concluded their investigation and determined that Beauchamp's story is totally bogus.

Yeah and Pat Tillman got a Silver Star after that investigation. It is obviously foolish to debate the wingers here as no fact that doesn't fit in their Limbaughian/LGF world view is ignored. There could be video evidence of the incidents Beauchamp described and they would look for the photoshop effects.

"Charles Johnson delivered a beautiful smackdown to your pathetic screed..."

Wow, great source! You might as well have said:

"Daffy Duck delivered ..."

Or

Pepe Le Pew delivered ...

Reactionaries ... bad for America, bad for democracy, on the skids just about everywhere you look.

Whence all the hate on Ezra? I know you folks are called trolls for a reason, and I know this poor shmuck Beuchamp is the new Emanuel Goldstein, but you folks are making fools of yourselves. Ezra made two posts: one reporting he saw a moderator act in a way that made him uncomfortable, and another pointing out that the wingers currently in an uproar about the possibly uncouth treatment shown to this soldier in Chicago seem not to notice the beam in their own eye with respect to another soldier whose reported viewpoint has made their own side uncomfortable. The first of these posts should be like balm to your crippled souls, and the second is inarguably the case.

No one on the left cares about Beauchamp, except in that we think soldiers should be free to speak about their experiences without being taken to the woodshed. The story's been checked, and while it isn't a pretty story, and frankly isn't really a very surprising or important story, it is - with the exception of a minor detail - a true story. The question you should be asking yourself is, why do you care about the story? We've got 150,000 people over there, under fire and a long way from the familiar ... did you think none of them would see bad behavior? Would engage in it? Would write overwrought letters describing the difficulties they were facing?

The hate's on Ezra's because he's blatantly falsifying what's transpired in the Beauchamp/New Republic case. You really have a problem with calling him out on that?

head over to LGF

Strap on your hazmat suit first, if you go.

I notice the missing commentary by the uniformed soldier on all 87 seconds that he talked on every video I can find of it. Just a coincidence, so it's been said. Like the missing 18 minutes on Nixon's tapes were accidentally erased. I'm sure he had his reasons, too.

How ironic, that those of you who justify or ignore the same type of act out of political motivation are the same ones who hate Nixon for doing the same goddamn thing for the same goddamn reason: covering your asses poitically so the bad stuff doesn't make it into the public arena.

How quickly you have become that which you despise.

BTW wasn't Scott Beauchamp in uniform when he made his statements to TNR, which then used his story for blatantly political reasons? I wonder how loudly Jon Stolz would be railing against Beauchamp if he were at that panel in uniform.

You can say all you want Scott Thomas was a whistleblower and had the right to do the "right thing,"
but there's two problems with that argument.

One, he is required under the UCMJ to disclose any such events he witnessed or participated in, or he is guilty of dereliction of duty.

Two, since more and more evidence is coming out hat his "Shock Troops" account is pure BS (as a veteran myself, my nose is a little more attuned to that than most here, and I smelled it from the first), then he engaged in purely political propaganda while in uniform.

I'll bet most of you here who scream now about a soldier in uniform engaging in political activity being blatantly unconstitutional will be more than outraged if Beauchamp is charged by the Army for the exact same offense.

My problem with all this is that wingnuttia is simply using this one incident to paint *all* liberals as liars or hypocrites or whatever. Jon Stolz's behavior reflects on him: not me. My opposition to the war is not tainted because one (or two or two thousand) other war opponents use tactics of which I disapprove: all the large truths of Bush and his failed war and his failed presidency remain truths, and can't be obscured by wingnuttia's obsessions with small stuff.

"Jon Stolz's behavior reflects on him: not me."

No, it reflects on YearlyKos and the rest of the nutroots crowd. That a soldier daring to ask a question at YearlyKos would be silencd and then escorted out of the building is a delicious irony.

At least Kos himself didn't hop into screen and yell "screw him" as our soldier was escorted from the building.

It warms my heart that this episode will be the takeaway for most Americans.

ONE error? It's the one that kind of invalidates his whole "the war is turning me into a character from Lord of the Flies" thesis, since when the incident in the chowhall supposedly now occurred *before he was in combat*.

". . .whose story has been proven true in virtually all respects, with the singular error misremembering the location of one of the stories. . ."

Mr Klein conveniently ignores the military investigation that has shown the reverse, that his story has been DISproven in all respects, except for the incident with the scarred woman, which didn't take place when or where Beauchamp said it did.

Perhaps he's one of those who prefers the word of the company that employs Beauchamp's significant other, the company that fired an employee for exposing that fact, to an investigation conducted by our men in the field.

Blah, blah, blah, moonbats. You really think possession of the actual facts is going to somehow carry the day for you? Wise up -- the facts are whatever we insist they are, presented with sufficient heat and self-righteousness to convince the dumber part of the electorate (about 45%) that we must somehow know what we're talking about. Nothing else.

Ezra, you did a great job for our side. You observed this tempest in a teapot and reported it in a sloppy, half-assed manner. Dude, you ARE the mainstream media! Of course, a video camera could -- and apparently did -- do the same thing. It also documented the fact that the soldier was given 87 seconds to run his mouth unobstructed, something you couldn't make clear in your original post on this event. Then, you sat on your ass in that room instead of getting up and interviewing the soldier, Soltz and some of the other people in the room. You robbed your reading audience of fact and context and you know how our brand of patriot thrives in that kind of environment. Think about it. The incident was important enough to you to mention it on a national blog site, but not important enough to put the kind of effort into it that a first-year journalism student would make in order to pass a class.

Moonbats, I salute you! You have met the enemy and his is yourselves!

Blah, blah, blah, moonbats. You really think possession of the actual facts is going to somehow carry the day for you? Wise up -- the facts are whatever we insist they are, presented with sufficient heat and self-righteousness to convince the dumber part of the electorate (about 45%) that we must somehow know what we're talking about. Nothing else.

Ezra, you did a great job for our side. You observed this tempest in a teapot and reported it in a sloppy, half-assed manner. Dude, you ARE the mainstream media! Of course, a video camera could -- and apparently did -- do the same thing. It also documented the fact that the soldier was given 87 seconds to run his mouth unobstructed, something you couldn't make clear in your original post on this event. Then, you sat on your ass in that room instead of getting up and interviewing the soldier, Soltz and some of the other people in the room. You robbed your reading audience of fact and context and you know how our brand of patriot thrives in that kind of environment. Think about it. The incident was important enough to you to mention it on a national blog site, but not important enough to put the kind of effort into it that a first-year journalism student would make in order to pass a class.

Moonbats, I salute you! You have met the enemy and he is yourselves!

Jeezus christ! Nixon's crime is that he turned off the sound while asking a question at a political panel and that is why we hate him? So we should hate Jon Stoltz or we are hypocrites? What the fuck are you people smoking? Do you not get the difference between Nixon's crimes in office and some shit that happens at a public conference?

aimai

I love how digging up the fact that two right-wing spokespeople are, respectively, a male prostitute and a gay porn star is completely irrelevant, but looking up Scott Beauchamp's wedding registry is, like, totally justified, man! Just look at that china pattern he picked out -- it's got "left-wing moonbat" written all over it!

I saw the video of the soldier at Yearly Kos. It was not exactly a shouting match. From what I read, Stoltz might have been a bit testy, but there wasn't any real yelling going on.

No Sanford, what you saw was a picture of someone in a uniform. How do you know that he really was a soldier. We need to find out exactly who this guy was and bring him up on charges of impersonating a soldier.

Um... the PAO where Beauchamp was stationed BEFORE he was deployed to Iraq has also denied that the harrasement of a disfigured lady...correction...that the disfigured face lady does not exsist...therefore Beauchamp is a liar and his diaries in TNR are all fiction.

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.”

Unfortunately, the "evil" Conservatives have been proven right. Beauchamp has been proven to be fake. That has to be a bitter pill to take. It's obvious that The New Republic's motivations in choosing Scott Beauchamp to write were questionable. Their behavior shows a low level of ethics.

..a slight correction to my above post. Beauchamp is a real army soldier, but his stories are fabricated. By the way, it was inappropriate for the soldier to wear his uniform at the KOS convention, but I would have to say it's inappropriate for Soltz to wear his military service on his sleeve when he's obviously of a leftist bent. Note his work for Kerry in politics, and his serving as a mouthpiece for the army providing "inadequate" armor for soldiers-a typical refrain from the left-that has been less than truthful. I don't see Soltz as more than a leftist mouthpiece who served in a support capacity. There's nothing dishonorable about that, at all, but the hidden leftist agenda is dishonorable. The left cannot tell the truth, nor do they understand the dishonor in being associated with the left.

What the fuck are you people smoking? Do you not get the difference between Nixon's crimes in office and some shit that happens at a public conference?