Coulter rounds up the story of TNR’s descent into Ratherdom quite nicely:

In their latest demonstration of how much they love the troops, liberals have produced yet another anti-war hoax.

The New Republic has been running “true war” stories from a brave, anonymous liberal penning dispatches from Iraq. The famed “Baghdad Diarist” described his comrades joyfully using Bradley fighting vehicles to crush stray dogs, mocking a female whose face had been blown off by an IED, and defacing Iraqi corpses by wearing skull parts on their own heads.

Various conservatives began questioning the plausibility of the anonymous diarist’s account — noting, for example, that Bradley vehicles don’t “swerve,” as the diarist claimed. The editor of The New Republic responded by attacking the skeptics’ motives, complaining that some conservatives make “a living denying any bad news that emanates from Iraq.”

But when that clever retort failed to quiet rumblings from the right wing, The New Republic finally revealed the “Baghdad Diarist” to be … John Kerry! Actually it was Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, Democratic candidate for president circa 2028. (That gives him 20 years to learn to pronounce “Genghis.”)

In revealing himself two weeks ago, Beauchamp lashed out at “people who have never served in Iraq.” He said he was too busy fighting “an actual war” to participate in “an ideological battle that I never wanted to join.”

He had tried to stay out of ideological battles by writing made-up articles in a national magazine claiming soldiers in Iraq had become callous beasts because of George Bush’s war, killing to “secure the riches of the empire.” Alas, this proved an ineffective method of keeping his head low. Beauchamp’s next bid for privacy will be an attempt to host “The Price Is Right.”

In response to Beauchamp’s revelation that he was the “Baghdad Diarist,” the military opened an investigation into his allegations. There was no corroboration for his stories, and Beauchamp promptly signed an affidavit admitting that every single thing he wrote in The New Republic was a lie.

Read the whole piece, it’s magnificent.

Ann gets a bad rap, often enough form her fellow Conservatives, but the fact is she’s one of the best writers in the social con genre. Her site’s always worth a read and no more so than now.