All Intensive Purposes

Franklin Foer takes The Plank to The Wall Street Journal:

This morning's Wall Street Journal editorial page zings James Fallows's recent Atlantic Monthly cover story on the training of the Iraqi army. According to the Journal, "Mr. Fallows not only didn't visit [the office charged with training the Iraqi army] but he didn't even contact them while reporting the article or at anytime during at least the past nine months." The Corner ran with the Journal's allegation. But, as Atlantic editor Cullen Murphy points out in a letter to NRO, this allegation is dead wrong. "Mr. Fallows had extensive email correspondence, starting last August, with the Public Affairs Officer for that organization, Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Wellman, who arranged an interview with its commander, Lieutenant General Dave Petraeus, in September. Mr. Fallows spoke with General Petraeus by phone for more than an hour, and checked quotes from that interview via Lt. Col. Wellman before using them in his article." It's bad enough that the Journal printed a slanderous falsehood. Murphy deadpans the perfectly ironic kicker: "At no point before printing this false statement did you contact Mr. Fallows or me to determine whether what you intended to publish was true." Only a few times in your life do you get set up so perfectly.

eta: James Wolcott has the full text of Murphy's letter.