Yesterday, Franklin Foer kept it real with himself and New Republic readers and admitted that the Baghdad Diarist was on the Stephen Glass side of truth.

And it wouldn’t be a real media controversy without Jack Shafer weighing in. His opinion? The New Republic took a chance on a young, embedded reporter, BFD:

The take-home lesson of Beauchamp isn't that young or novice writers should never be given a chance. … Experienced writers whose lengthy résumés include awards and credentials can swindle their editors every bit as fast as a kid.

Just goes to shows that Jack Shafer is unafraid of taking risks or using bold. That’s just the kind of editor he is.

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 :

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Less than two weeks after Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp (a.k.a. the "Baghdad Diarist") claimed he was "willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name," comes the breaking news that Beauchamp's name is, though fancy, apparently not worth very much.

"Beauchamp…has signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods," writes the Weekly Standard, adding that the "fabrications contain[ed] only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of a source."

In further disappointing news for Beauchamp, he's just been informed that he has approximately zero chance of parlaying his highly publicized faux-pas into a major motion picture (inspired by actual events!) starring Hayden Christensen as the unconvincing lead, Chloe Sevigny as the offbeat love-interest who doesn't really pan out and a before-he-was-famous Peter Sarsgaard in the role of crack-editor/real life douchebag Charles "Chuck" Lane.

At ABC headquarters in D.C., mysterious "white, powdery" substance turns out to be aspirin; Related: In moment of inspired genius, Lindsay Lohan's legal team unveils new "Tylenol" defense.

• CBS to pay Imus an undisclosed settlement. In exchange, the ousted radio D.J. will agree to "shut the fuck up."

• Ron Burkle still exploring the idea of adding Star and The National Enquirer to his "crappy supermarket tabloids" repertoire.

• Yeah, we're going to out on a limb here and say that Business Week's Jon Fine thinks Arthur Sulzberger should go private.

• Baghdad Diarist unimpressed with Weekly Standard and New Republic for being unimpressed with him: "It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq."

Does The New Republic have a new Stephen Glass on its hands? The magazine's "Baghdad Diarist" – penned by the pseudonym Scott Thomas, a U.S. solider in Iraq, and which has been published three times – is being called everything from "punctuated with red flags" to "complete garbage" when it comes to the possibility that its first-person accounts are true. And The Weekly Standard is leading the fight for the truth. Or the chance to make the competition look incompetent.

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