So The New Republic is willing to admit what the Weekly Standard knew along. No, not that trickle down economics works, but that the Baghdad Diarist is not real.

After a long investigation, and an even longer editor’s letter, Franklin Foer says that Baghdad Diarist Scott Thomas Beauchamp is filled with the same stuff as promises from the US Army :

When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

We hope that Peter Sarsgaard will let himself get typecast and play another TNR editor in the film version of this scandal.

Meanwhile, the National Review has apologized for misleading blog reports about Lebanon. Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez's excuse: "We weren't blogging about Dancing with the Stars there." (What's that supposed to mean?-Ed.)

Somehow, the fact that both sides are lying about the situation in the Middle East does not make us feel better.