Quote Originally Posted by Shawn Boyer View Post
Maxwell stated what I believe to be the more accurate explanation - the primary (potentially only) source of the information was Sabban. There was too much to lose for Sabban or his subordinates to shed light on the darker gray details of the incident.

In all probability, Bowden never got the true accounting.
It's entirely possible that Sabban was Bowden's only source of information - that wouldn't exactly be good journalism, but it's possible. It still wouldn't explain the oversight. Normally before speaking to any source a journalist would at least review some basic background information on the story, and even the most cursory attempt at homework would have brought him up against the Lamitan incident. Normally, also, the Atlantic editors would have run a basic fact-check and sent the story for review by somebody familiar with the events. Either would have immediately revealed the omission: this is not obscure information, it's probably the most visible and widely discussed incident in the ASG story.

Either we have to believe that there was not even the slightest attempt made at background research, fact-checking, or review, or we have to look at the possibility that information central to the story was deliberately omitted. To put it more bluntly, we have either an extraordinary lack of competence or an extraordinary lack of ethics.