American Thinker Political Director Richard Baehr sent the following to Editor in Chief Martin Peretz at The New Republic with regards to the Scott Thomas Saga:

I have been a subscriber to the New Republic for well over 20 years. While I am more to the right than most of your readers (you can read my articles at www.americanthinker.com), I have generally enjoyed the magazine, and the occasional policy debates within the journal, which suggested that no hard-line left wing ideology (say as in the Nation, or the Daily Kos) ruled the day.

Regrettably, in the last two years, and particularly since the ascendancy of Franklin Foer as editor, the magazine is becoming less distinguishable from , say the Nation, on all subjects other than Israel, and Leon Wieseltier's section. And the latest imbroglio in which you find yourself- relating to a possible fraud put over on readers with the Scott Thomas articles, really demonstrates the bad faith that too often goes with such partisanship. .

Unlike the Steven Glass deception, when editors were negligent because they were themselves entertained by the colorful stories, but no inherent political bias was at work, here a series of articles, which have served to severely tarnish the image of our soldiers in Iraq, may have been accepted by your editors, precisely because you wanted them to be true. .If that turns out to be the case, it is disgraceful, and Mr. Foer should be fired. It is a major problem , in any case, that the first serious fact checking on these articles is occurring now, only after three of them were published. The healthy skepticism that your editors should have shown about such potentially slanderous accusations, has instead been shown by writers at the Weekly Standard, which quickly found many reasons to doubt the veracity of the stories.

If it turns out, as I expect it will, that much in the stories cannot be corroborated, and Mr. Foer remains as editor, that will be very disappointing. A hollow apology does not suffice for such intellectual corruption and editorial laziness.. Do we really need just another anti war journal that plays with the facts, and disparages the troops? A journal with a long proud history is at risk , due to such rank partisanship.

Richard Baehr, Chicago.