The important thing to remember here is that this isn't a 
    story about shoddy fact-checking or a regrettable lapse of
    journalistic ethics over at TNR, rather this is indicative
    of how the left views the American warfighter. To them, 
    he's capable of such savagery that the far-fetched stories
    related by "Scott Thomas" are not only credible on their 
    face, but "exceptionally mild....

    .... . If the New Republic and its political kin weren't 
    predisposed to view American soldiers as barbaric, then 
    the "Scott Thomas" story would have struck them, as it did
    everyone else who has since commented on it, as 
    implausible at best.