Today's New York Times updates us on Franklin Foer's quest to verify the New Republic's "Shock troops" article. The article is by the pseudonymous Scott Thomas, described by TNR as "a freelance writer and soldier currently serving in Baghdad." The Times reports that Foer's quest has brought him to near-certainty that Thomas is indeed a soldier:

The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows with “near certainty” that he is, in fact, a soldier.

At TNR's blog The Plank, "the editors" have posted another "note to readers." They do not take issue with the accuracy of the Times's quote of Foer, but they do take issue with its substance:

TNR readers may have seen this story in the New York Times today. The story says that TNR knows with "near certainty" that Scott Thomas is a soldier in Iraq. In fact, we know this with absolute certainty.

Neither Foer nor "the editors" have yet quantified their level of epistemological certainty regarding the incidents referred to by Weekly Standard online editor Michael Goldfarb in his comment on the article in the Times:

“Absolutely every piece of information that’s come out since we put that call up has cast further doubt on that story,” said Michael Goldfarb, the online editor of The Weekly Standard. “There’s not a single person that has come forward and said, ‘It sounds plausible.’”

Foer states that he's still working to verify the anecdotes recounted in the article:

“It’s taking me a little bit longer than I wish it did. The author, not to mention some of the participants in the anecdotes he described, are active duty soldiers and they’re on 20-hour active combat missions sometimes, and it’s very difficult for me to get them all on the phone to ask them the questions that I’d like to ask.”

We don't know yet whether Thomas's article is fact or fiction. Foer may yet produce facts that substantiate it. As I observed last week, however, TNR ran the article without much in the way of independent verification of the incidents recounted in it. Foer's comments in the Times article today amplify the point. Given the poor light in which they displayed our armed forces serving in Iraq, the incidents retailed by "Thomas" were self-authenticating in the eyes of TNR. "The editors" never seriously thought to question them.

Related:

"A mission for the blogosphere."

"Fact of fiction? An update."

"Doubting Thomas."

"Franklin Foer talks."

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