A Drop of Common Sense in an Ocean of Irrationality

Wow. Are the End Times upon us already? John Podhoretz posts a true shocker at The Corner:

The issue with Scott Thomas Beauchamp isn't how he came to be published by the New Republic, or who his girlfriend-fiancee-wife might be. If TNR chose to publish his work because he had a relationship with someone on staff, so what? People are e-mailing things to me about this as though there is some dark conspiracy because social relationships may have played a role in professional advancement. The staffer whose name is being floated in connection with Beauchamp is guilty of nothing, and it's creepy that people are intimating she might be — and are already so invested in proving the truth of it that somebody may have concocted a spurious wedding registry for the two of them.

The only issue here was, and remains, whether the stories Beauchamp told in his Diarist (and in the two that preceded it) were matters of fact, or embellishments of tales he had heard around the base, or were invented out of whole cloth.

Of course, that is not the only issue here, but let's not quibble when a drop of common sense and moderation falls into an ocean of irrationality and hysteria.

Cross-posted at Shakespeare's Sister.