Filed under: Journalism, The New Republic, Gay, Iraq, Weekly Standard, Matt Sanchez
Media Matters offers the full, tawdry brief:
In an effort to undermine a New Republic article by Army Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp about alleged inappropriate conduct by U.S. troops in Iraq, an article by Weekly Standard reporter [Michael Goldfarb] relied on Marine Cpl. Matt Sanchez as the only military source identified by name but did not reveal facts that weigh on the credibility of Sanchez’s attacks on The New Republic article: that Sanchez, whose website describes him as a “Marine Reservist” who is “[presently] in Iraq interviewing the troops,” has reportedly been under investigation by the Marines over allegations that he bilked private donors out of $12,000 for a deployment to Iraq he never made and that he apparently once worked as a male escort. He has also admitted to having been in gay porn films, a fact he has acknowledged “leaving … off my curriculum vitae.”
…In a March 8 article for Salon.com, Sanchez wrote: “Others [bloggers] were comparing me to Jeff Gannon and claiming that I too had advertised my services as a male escort. I won’t deny it, or that I acted in several adult movies 15 years ago under names like Pierre LaBranche and Rod Majors.”
