Kevin Drum being right about Glenn Greenwald being wrong.
As he has with DougJ and Zandar, Drum’s been getting on my nerves lately, but he’s pretty good pointing out how Greenwald goes one step further than reporting will allow in his search to show the evils that Obama does.
Mike Goetz
Thank you. I read Greenwald last night, and the way he uses sources is flagrantly dishonest. And he uses his swollen- river prose to mask dozens of conclusory statements, unsupported bald assertions, and plain old tendentious opinions as facts.
gaz
How much longer will “Glenn Greenwald is a mendacious asshole” continue to be “news”?.
The sky is blue, water is wet, and Glenn Greenwald is a lying hack.
*yawn*
Linda Featheringill
Drum and DougJ and Zandar have been aggravating you lately?
Dude! Chill!
Marduk
Not a GG fan but it seems to me that he counters Drum’s point quite successfully with his response in the comments.
mistermix
@Linda Featheringill: I reworded it just for you.
MosesZD
If Glenn Greenwald is wrong, he’ll print a retraction. If Kevin Drum is wrong he’ll just ignore it or bullshit it.
As for ‘going one step further…’ Excuse me, but that’s what the fucking press is supposed to do. Go one step further and one more step and yet another step to rip the mask off the bullshit so we can see it for what it is…
We deprive people of their rights, their humanity, their ability to self-govern and even torture, under the guidelines of what is commonly understood as torture, innocent people under Obama’s watch. It is NOT cool and the mere fact someone may be a fucking bed-wetting coward hiding under their beds afraid of terrorists doesn’t justify it.
It will, however, create terrorism. Look at Afghanistan. Afghan troops are routinely shooting NATO trainers in the back during training. There are sucide bombers. There are more terrorist acts now than five years ago.
The Pakastani’s have turned so far against us that the Pakastani ISI is sheltering the Taliban. After all, when we run away and ‘declare victory’ they’ll still be having to deal with them. Just like Viet Nam.
Anyway, good for Greenwald. If he made an actual error instead of Drum conflating two different things, it’ll be there. The price of the very odd, very rare error is worth the accountability we get nowhere else.
c u n d gulag
I think Glenn and Sully will remember President Obama kindly if there’s a Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Bush, Daniels, Christie, Ryan, administration in 2012.
You know, when DADT is repealed, and DOMA is strengthened. Which will also happen if there’s a Paul Administation, Glenn, and Sully.
And their foreign policy consists of bombing everyone who looks at us funny, to prove how macho and exceptional we are as a country.
And as they decide that, maybe the homosexuals objecting to the governments new policies, are really homo-terrorists, and start to torture and rendition them.
I’m sick of Glenn, and I’m sick of Jane Hamsher.
Glenn, Ron Paul won’t save you.
And Jane, time to play footsie with Grover again – he so misses you!
Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it…
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Linda Featheringill: That’s a good point. In his irritation, mistermix’s craft in that sentence was, well, less than optimal. Unless of course he’s also annoyed with DougJ and Zandar.
The larger point is good. Drum’s been banging on about the “both sides” pearl clutching nonsense lately. And he’s set a forceful argument for what is not news, that Glenzilla is a disingenuous expat hack with an agenda.
gaz
@MosesZD:
And then you woke up…
MosesZD
On observation: Greenwald was quite the hero to the left when he bashed Bush for the same exact things he bashes Obama for. Funny how bullshit tribalism almost always trumps so-called ‘moral positions.’
Orwell was right. The Nationalist cannot even see…
Satanicpanic
Here we go again
MosesZD
@gaz:
Fuck yourself. He prints clafications, retractions and updates.
It’s there for the record, asshole.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@mistermix: And for me. Thanks!
mistermix
@MosesZD: You didn’t even read the Drum piece, because if you had, you would have seen that the journalist was “one of America’s best and most intrepid reporters” (Glenn’s words) Jeremy Scahill and if he didn’t report it, it wasn’t because of fear or apathy.
@Marduk: Do you have a link for that? Usually if Glenn thinks he can counter an argument he does it in one of his Updates so I didn’t check the 324 comments.
gaz
@MosesZD: Your observations are bullshit.
Scan the archives. I for one, have been pretty consistently calling out GG for forever and a day. I was never a fan.
I’ve even responded personally when he’d drive by troll this board w/ his bag of lies.
Marduk
Hopefully this link works?
gaz
@MosesZD: LOL. you mad!
Lawnguylander
@MosesZD
A mildly sarcastic response that implies criticism of your hero is all it takes to send you into profane hysterics? Tsk, tsk
Cacti
@MosesZD:
fix’t.
gaz
@Lawnguylander: That’s how the GG horde rolls, dontcha know!
Linda Featheringill
@mistermix:
:-)
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Cue up El Tiburon and the rest of the Greenwald defense league. They all boor the shits out of me, and it is beyond my comprehension the degree to which many liberals, and conservatives on the internet need some hero to worship, as some kind of shadow pseudo government.
Yea yea, I know, truth to power, Obama bad as Bush, yadda yadda ya. Spare me the bullshit. We have an election to win and no time for protest monkeys to get their poutrage on.
Lawnguylander
@MosesZD
A mildly sarcastic response that implies criticism of your hero is all it takes to send you into profane hysterics? Tsk, tsk. You should read Altermeyer’s The Authoritarians. It will be an uncomfortable experience for you, but will be worth it in the long run. Hero worship is intellectual poison, bruh.
mcd410x
This from the person who wrote:
Read it again. It was quite clear what Whittaker was writing about.
gaz
@Cacti: heh. or his flying monkey squad will. (Such delicious irony – fuckin’ love seeing the mindless projection)
mistermix
@Marduk: Sorry, I thought that you meant in the comments on Salon.
Here’s my general beef with GG. This (from the comment you linked) might well be the truth:
Schahill’s reporting doesn’t support it, but it could be true. What do we do about it in GG’s world, other than go after obots by calling everyone who disagrees with him, essentially, mindless supporters of the President? GG thinks that one horn of Drum’s dilemma (Obama is a sociopath) is unfair, but that’s pretty much how most of GG’s arguments sound.
Cacti
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Glenn is the poster boy for white people problems.
Lawnguylander
Oops, sorry for the double post. Huge thumbs and an iPhone don’t always work well together.
@gaz
Yes, but we shouldn’t give up on them. I know it seems unlikely, but it is possible for cultists like MosesZD to cop on to the fact that the new wave of careerist pundit hacks are no more interested in enlightening us than the old guard has ever been.
gaz
@Lawnguylander: Sorry man. I just prefer to out-vote them.
Splitting Image
@MosesZD:
So you’re saying the greatness of Greenwald is his willingness to say both sides do it and denounce the lesser evil as much as the greater, as opposed to, say, David Broder’s willingness say both sides do it and defend the greater evil at the expense of the lesser?
gaz
@Splitting Image: I think it’s probably more tribal.
I suspect that a plurality of GG’s base of support comes from disenfranchised, yet privileged, white male “civil libertarian” racists. He speaks their language, after all.
Pococurante
Greenwald’s volume control starts at 11 – and it’s not just a matter of being shrill, he is all too quick to assign the very worst motivations. From his rebuttal to Drum:
With such skills he could probably also have diagnosed Terry Schiavo via YouTube.
Shaye may well be an innocent journalist being held under false pretenses under pressure by POTUS.
But I doubt it’s simply because he reported on a publicly announced air strike in which innocents died. We have too many reports like that every few months.
I suspect his links to Al Qaeda or terrorism in general will pan out. At that point the story becomes a rhorshach test to the world much like the Anwar al-Awlaki assassination.
thruppence
I cannot go to bed! Someone on the internet is WRONG!
mistermix
@mcd410x: Are you trying to bring a Googlebot accusation into an Obot fight? I guess I’ll bite.
That essay was a meandering stew of resentments about Google management, a fairly incoherent view of advertising, and some good points about Google+. To represent it as something with the clarity of argument of either Drum or GG is unfair to both those guys, and a stupid comparison to boot.
Scott
I must admit, I’d kinda like to see Ronpaul get into the Oval Office, just so we could enjoy Greenwald’s enthusiastic excuse-making for his hero’s inability to legalize pot (“It’s not his fault Congress won’t do what he wants them to!”) and his praise of Preznit Ronpaul bombing Iran (“They hate us for our freedom!”) and banning Occupy protests (“Ha ha, I live in Brazil!”).
gaz
@Scott: And I think I’ll pour acid all over my face, just to get weird looks out of people.
Seriously man. You should reconsider the merits of staying home on election day.
redshirt
Rebegun the Greenwald Wars have.
paradox
I agree with an earlier comment, how productive a start to this day to yet again get in a fight on the evils of Glenn Greenwald. Jesus Christ.
The right is a bad echo chamber, yes, but we’ve got one too. I guess y’all can’t see how stifling and oppressive this place to anyone who is not on the Obama Side.
You’re so smart-assy (dude, I know english so much better than you), so very funny, so loyal, so totally brutal to anyone who doesn’t toe the line.
Kevin Drum always gets on my nerves, just like this place does. Go ahead and fuck up the country and all of us while being so proud of not being Republicans. How proud you must be, Glenn Greenwald is our problem!.
Heh. So much better than Republicans, yeah.
Raven
@gaz: And “Sully” is a dickhead. Who gives a fuck?
Scott
More seriously, I can’t take anyone seriously who says that the president is engaged in a conspiracy to punish one piddling reporter on the opposite side of the planet for daring to stand in his way on a minor issue. It’s essentially the same thing as saying Obama killed Breitbart.
Just Some Fuckhead
Awesome. Maybe this thread will be the one in which we solve this vexing and long-running dilemma.
yawn.
Mudge
Are there two people more different than Drum and Greenwald? Drum is almost an automaton, shows very little enthusiasm for anything and is hopelessly analytical. Answer the question, “What is Drum passionate about? Photography?
Greenwald is an ideologue of high emotion and dudgeon. He provides the outrage that is often needed. He makes an occasional leap of faith without evidence. Drum would require a net, You accept them for who they are and consider what they say in that context. Each has interesting insights more often than not, but consider their service. I doubt this issue would have shown up on Balloon Juice without both weighing in. This episode wasn’t on my radar screen.
Scott
@gaz: I did say I’d kinda like to see it. I’d hoped the “this is a silly fantasy that amuses me briefly but I’d never really actually want” would come through stronger… :)
Cassidy
@MosesZD:
Interesting choice of word. It’s an exaggeration of course, but as long as you can push your purity argument, then what’s the difference right?
gaz
@Scott: Sorry. Bit of crank this morning, I admit – a rough night for me*
Anyway yay – please to take my comment with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I shouldn’t start my morning with GG for breakfast.
And now that I’ve had a cup of coffee, I promise to be more civil =)
*my maine coon decided he was going to sleep on my pillow for 8 freakin hours – my cat sleeps like a drunk.
Soonergrunt
Hell, if I knew this was going to come up, I’d have taken a sick day so I could stay home and watch it in real time with popcorn and beer.
SRW1
@mistermix:
Schahill’s reporting doesn’t support it, but it could be true.
And how the fuck do you think that would change without some people screaming about it, mistermix?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Soonergrunt: Best comment so far. I suspect many of us feel the same way. By many of us, of course, I mean myself.
Though stuckinred’s sums it up nicely, with the demonstration of the approximate level of back and forth at its essence.
Cassidy
There are other blogs on the internet. Not sure if you knew that.
gaz
@Soonergrunt: I suspect mistermix of playing a social experiment on left-coasters…
how would we react to him regurgitating some notorious flame-bait subject (at least for BJ) at 6am. heh.
I gotta give him some props for that. Even though he’s a mean bastard!
Yevgraf
ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, LETS HAVE A FORUM WAR.
Seriously, this “inside baseball” shit on paid punditry is old, and resembles the days of the old time internet forum snits. Can we all agree that the paid punditry that publishes in this country and the anglosphere suck dog balls?
After all, they’re all underqualified to offer an opinion on anything – they have little to no life experience, and no actual accomplishments to their credit. They aspired to be pundits, for fuck’s sake – how useless is that?
Lawnguylander
@paradox
chopper
@Pococurante:
at which point greenwald will write an ‘update’ either arguing that the links are made up by obama himself, and in the alternative tentatively accept them ‘…but it still doesn’t change my overall point that obama is history’s greatest monster.’
and idiots will swoon over his ‘ability to admit being wrong’.
wilfred
It’s a pity that the only attention Glenn gets around here is when he writes something that outrages the Obamatreuen. The post just before this, the one where he points out the absolute hypocrisy of the Material Support of Terrorist provisions when selectively applied to people who think brown-skinned Muslims are, you know, humans, was exactly the kind of thing that once outraged Democrats.
But that was when Leftists were part of the Democratic Party. Glenn’s site is for that portion of the Left that looks to OWS and other remnant Left beliefs, I won’t bore the readership here, and does not share in the peculiar politics of the new Democratic Party, as exemplified by posters at this site.
Glenn certainly ignores the absolute shit out of you. Why don\t you ignore him?
gaz
@wilfred: Actually he doesn’t.
He has a habit of drive-by trolling this blog when somebody here says he’s a lying asshole.
The butthurt is legion.
chopper
@wilfred:
well, you can try not to.
chopper
@gaz:
don’t forget sockpuppet-gate.
gaz
@chopper: heh. you mean the flesh and blood variety, or the robo-trolls? (edit: not that there is any functional difference between the two)
dmsilev
I can see that this comment thread is going places.
Scott
@gaz: No worries — I’ve been neglecting my sarcasm tags lately… :)
Satanicpanic
@Yevgraf:
I won’t be happy until pundit as a profession is accorded the same amount of respect as burger-flipper.
MBunge
@wilfred: “It’s a pity that the only attention Glenn gets around here is when he writes something that outrages the Obamatreuen.”
Barack Obama is the most liberal U.S. President since…well, since Nixon.
Barack Obama has achieved more and greater progressive policy victories than any U.S. President since LBJ.
When THAT guy becomes the object of your hate and loathing, you might want to reconsider whether you’re really any sort of liberal or leftist at all.
Mike
Soonergrunt
@Satanicpanic: For the most part, you’re already there.
kindness
Near as I can figure Kevin Drum is angling for an open invite to all of Sally Quinn’s parties. Kevin presents himself as an open minded/progressive writer but far too often he parrots incredibly dumb MSM/Village Elder talking points most of us would be embarrassed to speak.
I’m not going to say Glennzilla is without fail as he does go too far but I will give Glenn the recognition of virtue, principle and honor. Glenn fights for what he believes in and isn’t ashamed to speak ill of those on his side of the aisle. Pisses me off some times but I’ll give him an integrity pass for it. He isn’t FDL even though some times he sounds like it.
Should our government ask foreign nations to jail journalists they don’t like? No, they shouldn’t.
gaz
@MBunge: progressives and liberals don’t use the term “leftist”
wilfred is a repuke concern troll.
Rita R.
@MosesZD:
I count three different ways in which that sentence is factually incorrect, most hilariously in the contention that it was us who drove the ISI and the Taliban into each others arms. Hope that isn’t the level of information and truth-telling Greenwald is putting out there as he makes the world safe for accountability.
gaz
@kindness: I’d have considered giving him a pass, up until he apologized for, idolized, and defended the worthless scumbag racist and homophobe* Ron Paul… (* particularly pathetic of GG, considering he’s gay)
chopper
@Rita R.:
yeah, the ISI has been supporting and helping the taliban for what, 20 years now?
wilfred
Well, I honestly don’t think Obama will get much support from the Left. Maybe it won’t matter, but based on the comments I read at Glenn’s site, I can’t see it.
He’s a Leftist. You’re not. I just don’t get the anger against him, especially considering the constant outrage here about a handful of things while other issues which once defined Democrats are either denigrated as ‘purity’ trolling or trashed as not being pragmatic enough.
I think the guy’s brilliant, exactly the kind of voice the Left needs. You don’t like, don’t fucking read him.
Is that so difficult?
gaz
@wilfred:
That can be chalked up to you being a moron. It is actually that simple.
See you in november.
Scott
@wilfred: I call Poe’s Law.
RP
I don’t think this place is nearly the echo chamber that GG’s blog is. The mindless hero worship and zeal to shout down dissenting voices over there is disturbing. Much of what GG and his readers say about “Obots” is pure projection.
Satanicpanic
@gaz: I call myself a leftist, but that’s just me. Anyway, us leftists, liberals, etc., have mostly figured out that Greenwald is a libertarian. What gets me about civil libertarians is their insistence that civil liberties exist in a vacuum- they can somehow exist even while you’re stripping away every other facet of modern society ala Ron Paul. Greenwald tries to come off as a hard-nosed realist, but he’s got huge blind spots on how people think and how the world actually works. But you knew that.
Omnes Omnibus
I will agree that Greenwald does a good job of shining a light on civil liberties issues that would otherwise pass in noticed. I would ask, howeve, that it also be recognized that he uses conclusory reasoning and often imputes base motives to political actors upon flimsy evidence. Deal?
gaz
@RP: We’ve got something of an echo-chamber here.
I mean, there’s Tunch to consider. Nobody here will speak ill of Tunch. We defend him, even if he’s wrong. He completes us.
Cacti
@wilfred:
And this, dear readers, is what we call “confirmation bias”.
kindness
@gaz: See and I don’t sit on every word that leaves GG’s or anyone else’s pen. I view the amalgum more. So what if GG & Sully loves them some Ron Paul who would just as soon jail gays? People are allowed to be idiots. People are allowed to hold views that are contradictory. That is today’s web and world. Just look at the den BJ has created. Gives us the joys of mockery.
I’m a cafeteria liberal. I pick out what I like and put less importance on the rest until that rest overshadows what I like.
gaz
@Satanicpanic: so calling yourself a “leftist” – is that a “taking it back” thing?
it’s coded slander for people to left of Machiavelli
Omnes Omnibus
@ OO: Fucking autocorrect and FYWP. The word was unnoticed. Stupid machines.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m in.
gaz
@kindness: I have core values.
Not apologizing for racists would be one.
I take the long view on people, but if you violate a core value of mine, I do not give a fuck what else you say. It’s enough to give you a failing grade in my book.
Indicators of core values can be telling overall indicators of motivations.
I can’t trust GG.
david mizner
GG eviscerates Drum in the thread and is overly kind in doing so.
Drum should be ridiculed, seeing as though his argument boils down to: Scahill and Greenwald must be wrong because President Obama would never do such a thing. Apparently Drum has missed, oh, all of human history in which people with massive power repeatedly abuse it.
But then, Drum is the authoritarian laughing stock who said he trusts the President’s judgment more than his own, so.
wilfred
Well, I see a lot more labeling here than I see at Glenn’s site.
Look, Glenn’s is a site for people of the Left. You’re not. That’s ok.
A liberal is not a Leftist. If you so concerned with shorthand and labels, start thinking about the difference. Glenn is for the latter, this place is for the former.
gaz
@wilfred: and yet you keep reading and posting…
troll, troll, troll your post,
gently ‘cross the thread…
merrily merrily merrily merrily
proof of empty head
h/t to some other commenter from yesterday…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Satanicpanic:
Objection. Those burgers aren’t going to flip themselves, you know. Burger-flippers perform a socially useful function, at least for those of us who really enjoy a nice juicy burger. With green chile and bacon on top. Mmmm…
What were we talking about again?
Scott
@wilfred: I call Poe confirmation.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@wilfred: “I think the guy’s brilliant, exactly the kind of voice the Left needs. You don’t like, don’t fucking read him.”
I quit reading him long ago but when someone points out yet another overreach of his I’m more than happy to laugh at it. Glenn is the kind of guy who can take one fact and a pile of bullshit and turn it into an argument that smells to high heaven. He’s nothing more than an opinionated loudmouth with an axe to grind. I think the head on his axe is probably the size of a small hatchet after all of the grinding he has done on it. You are supposed to give the axe an edge to cut with, not grind it flat.
Glenn hasn’t learned that yet.
RP
Criticism can’t escape his event horizon.
gaz
@RP: lol!
Satanicpanic
@gaz: I didn’t know it had a bad connotation outside of the rightwing. I don’t know if I call myself “leftist” so much as a I say “I don’t have a specific ideology but I’m definitely on the left.” I’m not trying to be the next Che Guevara but calling yourself a liberal will definitely get you teased by the punks.
Cacti
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
How Glenn Greenwald’s value as a protest person is less than that of a tasty hamburger.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@wilfred:
Co-signed. Our political vocabulary is so impoverished in the US that this important distinction is overlooked far too often in our discussions here. It wouldn’t stop the flame wars between liberals and leftists, but at least we would be clearer about what was going on if we understood that the conflicting parties are not on the same side ideologically, they are merely allies of convenience against their common enemies on the Right. It also explains a lot of the animus from the Left against Obama, something he shares in common with every other liberal president from Lincoln to the present day.
Amir Khalid
@Satanicpanic:
I’ll second this. Punditry, whether as a columnist, a TV/radio talking head, or a blogger, should be a sideline; you should have something else as a main gig. It could be reporting, it could be editing, it could even be something outside of journalism altogether, like Krugman professoring in economics — anything, really, as long as it gives you perspective from outside the cocooned elite crowd.
It would also help if punditry were not a permanent gig, either, but something people rotated in and out of. Too many pundits now have tenure who no longer (or never did) have anything sensible to add to the conversation, and fill their columns or blog posts with any old nonsense. If you can be rotated in and out, you’ll be less likely to overrate your two cents worth, and so will others.
gaz
@Satanicpanic: fair enough…
I don’t tend to hear it spoken outside wingnut circle-jerks – you are probably the first self-identified “leftist” I’ve heard use the term.
Ben Franklin
Obama is not a murderous sociopath, psychopath…whatever.
Is that what Greenwald said?
wilfred
He is from the Left. You’re not.
The Democratic Party morphed into something new and different from it was. I’m not criticizing it, it’s just not what it was.
As for the dread Libertarian tag, I think Glenn is a lot closer to something Susan Sontag wrote about in the late ’60’s. The Left is de facto internationalist, something that Libertarians are not.
As for his style, weel, that’s a matter of taste. I don’t get the need for 10 posters writing the same things about the same issue, but that, too, is a matter of taste.
Glenn has an audience. You’re not it. So?
Cacti
Simplified protest person equation:
MLK > Abbie Hoffman > Tasty Hamburger > Glenn Greenwald
gaz
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: god man…
this subgenre hipster bullshit has now infected politics?
i remember clubbing back in my youth – I used to want to punch anyone that made the distinction between 2step and darkstep..
…or the 30 different varieties of “heavy metal”…
meh.
jesus wept.
and doesn’t encouraging multiple distinct labels for every possible nuanced position just sort of encourage the divisiveness you seem to lament?
cleek
@david mizner:
you are incorrect.
Drum’s argument is that it makes no sense for Obama to do such a thing to a journalist simply for the crime of re-reporting old news. and, he claims, other motivations are a better fit for the facts as we currently know.
Daniel T.
“I tell you Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the
human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make
mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the party,
which is collective and immortal. Whatever the party holds to be truth,
is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.”
– George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In the case of this piece and others by progressive apologists for Obama, the party is the Democratic Party.
Orwell would probably be amazed that the Ministry of Truth didn’t need to be created by government, but originated organically from the wills of journalists too eager to defend a president at every turn.
Matthew
The unabashed Obama love here has gone way overboard. Listen to the partisan hacks spend the next year sagely informing everyone that Obama is kinda, mostly better than Romney – you stupid progressives are gonna weep when you see what the Republicans do if they’re elected. Elect our guy to flaunt the constitution and murder American citizens, not the guy from the other party who will do the same thing, only a little bit worse. The Democrat line, personified by true believers like Drum and the semi-serious, mostly literate posters here at BJ, is pathetic. There is little difference between the mindless followers who label themselves Democrats and those who label themselves Republicans. You’re all nothing more than due-paying members of a tribe. You’re all complicit in Obama’s murders and assault on the constitution.
But by all means, keep reminding yourselves of how superior you are because you’re practical-minded.
Riilism
Seriously, Obama (or should I say, his CIA and military masters, who Obama trusts and gives them what they want), enough with the small fry, it’s time to water-board Wolf Blitzer for crimes against inanity….
Satanicpanic
@gaz: The other reason I say that is because, like you, I hate the sub-genres.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@gaz:
Sorry, this isn’t some hipster thing. It is a basic distinction in US politics which applied with particular force during the Cold War when most liberals in the US were anti-leftist in orientation, but which predated that era and has survived the end of the Cold War in a more subtle fashion. At the most basic level, liberals want to improve and preserve capitalism and leftists want to replace it with a distinctly different system for producing and distributing wealth. See for example the arguments we have today over what the Obama administration has done with the TARP program. And the same sort of argument (which breaks out even when both sides agree on common ends, over the distinction between means vs. ends) can also be found between liberals and leftists on other topics besides our system of political economy.
If you don’t get this distinction it suggests to me that you just aren’t very familiar with our history of political conflicts between liberals and the Left. This is a long running argument.
Phil Perspective
@cleek: Old news to whom? Us here in the states, yes. To people living in Yemen? No. Did you read Scahill’s whole story?
Marduk
@mistermix: I agree that GG’s #5 is speculative. However it is presented in the context of Drum’s argument that either Shaye is a terrorist or Obama is a sociopath. GG offers an alternative explanation that is more plausible than either of those two options. Either way, both are speculating based on the same set of facts.
I point to this not to claim that GG’s interpretation is correct, but because I think it reveals how very bad Drum’s critique is.
And I think the facts, sans speculation, warrant further investigating.
Satanicpanic
@Amir Khalid: I totally agree. I want information from people who actually know what they’re talking about, not the same group of people who are called on 5 times a day to give their opinion. 99% of the time I already know what they’re going to say.
david mizner
@cleek:
Well he sets up a binary choice whereby Obama is either a “sociopath” or has reason to believe Shaye is AQ. This is childish way of viewing this issue specifically and state power generally. Shaye has exposes all sorts of info tthat’s embarrassing to the US — info that was a huge deal in Yemen, undercutting the US war effort there — and is likely to do so again. The U.S. has an obvious interest in keeping him under wraps and President Obama needn’t be a sociopath to do so; he only has to be a person with lots of power. Why would President Obama do this? Because it makes sense to and because he can.
Soonergrunt
@wilfred:
Might have something in common with the reason you come here.
wilfred
“Why would President Obama do this? Because it makes sense to and because he can.”
Oh, dear.
Donald
You don’t need to read GG’s response to see what’s wrong with Drum’s reasoning. There’s been a bipartisan consensus among Presidents that sometimes we will support a dictator against his own people and when you get down into the details, that’s going to mean things like supporting a dictator when he imprisons a journalist, or supplying weapons that will be used to kill civilians, and so on. Pretending that Obama has to be a sociopath to engage in this is just ludicrous–the fact is that our society rewards people in high places for engaging in sociopathic behavior, doing things that they would never do if they didn’t tell themselves it was necessary for national security. And yes, Obama will switch sides when that’s possible, just as Reagan supported Marcos and then stopped. It’s just politics, except for the poor fools being tortured.
As for the motive, again you don’t need GG to see what is wrong with Kevin Drum’s reasoning. OF COURSE there’s no political penalty within the US when we blow up Arab civilians. Duh. But people in Yemen might care if the US government is blowing up their civilians and then telling the government in Yemen to take the blame.
The sociopathy is in the system. It has otherwise decent people lining up on one side or the other on an issue like this based on which political party is in the White House. Or that’s one manifestation. And the fact that Obama doesn’t have to worry about domestic American politics when our government kills civilians and lies about it is another manifestation.
FlipYrWhig
@Omnes Omnibus: Second. And, for the love of God, as far as we can tell from his punditry, he’s not anywhere near “left.” He dreads the coercive power of the federal government. So do militia-movement people. So do Paulistas. So did the SDS. It’s not a left-right thing.
cleek
@Phil Perspective:
that’s a question you should direct to Mr Drum. it’s his argument, not mine.
Phil Perspective
@david mizner: And apparently, people have already forgotten stuff like the case of Maher Arar. Just goes to show that our government will lock up people for no good reason.
Donald
Incidentally, I don’t know whether Obama is personally guilty in this case, but Kevin’s binary choice is moronic. I do know that the Obama Administration has condemned Palestinian rockets as terrorist attacks while doing all in their power to prevent the UN from condemning Israel’s far larger war crimes. For a normal person to lie about this sort of thing would be sociopathic–for a politician or government official it’s all in a day’s work.
Ben Franklin
Greenwald visits Drum’s comments with reasonable questions, which, 19 hours later, remain unanswered.
I’m amazed at how many assume there must be adequate justification, albeit unseen, for Obama to keep this reporter incommunicado. ‘The sky is falling’?
Maybe not. Perhaps we should look up, occasionally.
FlipYrWhig
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: But gaz isn’t wrong that the whole thing also has hipsterish subculture-splitting overtones. “Leftist” as a label, outside the movement history and poli sci, basically means “hardcore.”
Mnemosyne
Okay, I have to laugh at this part of Greenwald’s comment at Drum’s place, because the lack of self-awareness is just astonishing to me:
Greenwald is criticizing someone for acting as though there are only two extreme poles? Seriously? This is a joke, or someone impersonating him, right?
Phil Perspective
@cleek: I have, and so far he hasn’t answered.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@gaz:
This on the other hand is a good question. I don’t think so. I think that pretending that liberals and leftists are the same ideologically just encourages the folks doing the arguing to make presumptions of bad faith and to fling accusations of sellout, traitor to the cause, etc. against the other side. I think we can have arguments which are less bitter if we understand that what is going on is a political negotiation between potential allies rather than a struggle for power within the same movement.
Riilism
Gotcha. Hear that folks? Obama’s no sociopath, he’s just a tool of sociopaths (unwitting? I’m sure we’ll all find out in one of GG’s updates). That bit of rank speculation makes me feel so much better. I was afraid I may have voted for a lunatic. Turns out I voted for the lapdog of lunatics. Whew! That was a close one.
Geez, Drum, don’t ya see there’s more than two extreme poles on the continuum? You need to start thinking outside the box….
gaz
@FlipYrWhig: I figure you’re both right, but I’m still leaning towards my/your take on the hipsterish overtones..
I’m not a damned history professor and following politics more or less means living in the now, or standing idly by while some previously poignant label gets twisted by the current political landscape/zietgiest and becomes a sort of anachronism – or worse – a misnomer that is subverted to mean something it didn’t originally mean to begin with because it fits someone’s agenda.
On the other hand, maybe I’m guilty of that myself. But the problem with clinging to all of these little sub-labels remains – they have a short shelf-life compared to larger umbrella terms, and they are often exploited as tools to misinform the public.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know where Greenwald would be without that move whereby he reduces the number of possibilities, then declares that he has found the only reasonable one, then draws sweeping conclusions about the appalling and terrifying implications.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Riilism:
ummmm. Wonder what he is getting at? double hmmmmmm.
Zagloba
Jeebus, is this about the Ron Paul thing again? Can you stop fucking lying about that already?
Donald
“Barack Obama is the most liberal U.S. President since…well, since Nixon.
Barack Obama has achieved more and greater progressive policy victories than any U.S. President since LBJ.
When THAT guy becomes the object of your hate and loathing, you might want to reconsider whether you’re really any sort of liberal or leftist at all.”
I’m only a sporadic visitor here. There are layers of complexity and irony in that comment that make it really brilliant–I wish I’d written it– unless the person meant the whole thing in a completely humorless literal sense. So how was it intended?
El Tiburon
Oh, the Hatred is strong young Mistermix, come to the Dark Side. All of you, come to the Dark Side of the Force. Much power, yes. Hmmm?
Reminiscent of DougJs outsourced attack on Greenwald which turned out to have no merit, as with this, not really much there there.
When it comes to folks like Greenwald, minds are made up. Also funny when Cole on occasion posts a link to Greenwald with the question: “Show me where he is wrong?” And the replies are invariably about anything other than the topic at hand.
I guess sometimes hatred is an insincere form of flattery as you are showing your hand that you are jealous or something.
Ben Franklin
I don’t know what’s happened to Drum since he went to MJ.
He does write a lot of posts daily. Quotas?
I just know he can’t make a connection between Petrodollars and the cost of gasoline.
FlipYrWhig
@gaz: Liberal and leftist do mean different things — for instance, “liberal” and “neoliberal” economics has to do with free trade — but very few people use them in their scholarly definitions anymore. The point of declaring yourself a “leftist” is to say that you’re angrier and less willing to compromise and work with/within the system than a “liberal” is. It’s 95% attitude.
gaz
@Zagloba: Whatever man. There’s massive amounts of material written by GG on his little corner of salon, and on twitter that has him excusing Ron Paul over his racism. Clearly… See, there’s this thing called the internet – and it “remembers” what people have said. Also, I can read at a normal adult level.
IOW, not a lie. And the facts are on my side.
Now, fuck you very much, GG flying monkey, because I will not continue to engage a moron that disregards GG’s entire history of defending ron paul and his racist bullshit.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@FlipYrWhig:
Well yeah, but that’s what I’m talking about when I say we have a degraded political vocabulary. When we don’t even have adequate words in common usage to describe important differences in goals and in attitudes towards ends-means distinctions, between some-time political allies who have a long history of fighting bitter battles against each other, then I think that is a problem worth addressing. That, and I just don’t feel like surrendering to the debasement of political speech that the Right has imposed on us by their constant repetition of the slogan that Liberal = Left.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
From reading comments on this thread, it is obvious that Kevin Drum needs up his left wingnut creds, to have any chance of catching GG in that department. What a waste of time it is.
SRW1
@Omnes Omnibus:
Deal.
Marc
Greenwald is as reliable as Fox News as a source. You can count on him to omit facts that are inconvenient and to assign the worst possible motives to anyone that he disagrees with. You can come away from Greenwald articles less informed than if you had read nothing. A great example is Obama’s speech on Iran. The rest of the world saw it as him countering war fever. In the hostile mind of Greenwald we had Obama bringing us closer to war (because Glenn could twist his words that way.)
His behavior has made me reassess some matters from the Bush era: Glenn was probably being just as dishonest then, and I wasn’t aware of it. I’m now more critical of people who demonize others. Bush really did a lot of bad things, but that doesn’t excuse fundamentally dishonest Greenwald-like approaches.
But my true dislike of the man is related to the way that he treats anyone who dares to disagree with him. Greenwald has injected poison in the internal atmosphere among online liberals. He loudly dismisses all criticism in advance as coming from robotic worshippers of Dear Leader. And he has a loud cadre of worshippers who will defend everything that he says and does, completely unaware of the irony involved in their uncritical and automatic defense of his every word.
pcall
The excuses given to defend the indefensible just because it’s a Democrat in the WH is depressing. I never knew my Party had so many unprincipled members until now. We might be better off if some jerk like Romney gets elected, if only to have some pretend opposition to these dangerous, lawless policies from the Democrats. It’s pretty sad when a lifelong Democrat like myself would even consider voting Republican but because her Party is more interested in WINNING than in protecting the Constitution and upholding values that at election time it claims to hold I’m almost tempted to do so. Shame on all of you for your lack of integrity.
Donald
“Turns out I voted for the lapdog of lunatics. ”
Okay, apparently we’ve got people here who have never considered the possibility that an American President who happens to be a liberal might support a dictator on the advice of people in government. That would explain a lot.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
My rule of thumb is ‘what would we say if the president was from the other party?’. I’m pretty sure we’d call Bush a fascist under similar circumstances.
Zagloba
Amazing. Your magical ability to read whatever you want between the lines constitutes evidence now. Truly you have a dizzying intellect.
Corner Stone
It’s fairly obvious that the people bashing GG have not bothered to read any of the three pieces involved (Scahill, GG, Drum).
Because if they had, it would be nearly impossible for them to arrive at the conclusion that Kevin Drum’s piece is a solid critique.
FlipYrWhig
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I think that’s true, and my own nitpicky point is that I think most of the Greenwald issues are small-r republican, not “left” at all. But since they’re criticisms of a Democrat that echo criticisms of a Republican, it _looks_ like a “left” critique, because the critique appears to be that the Democrat is acting like a Republican, hence too “right.”
I don’t think we’ve done a good job thinking through how executive power/civil liberties are related to liberalism and leftism. We don’t have to have an answer to that to know how we feel, or should feel, about them, either. But it would cut through a tangle of confusion that happens whenever they come up.
Corner Stone
I guess this means that journalists who at one time interviewed Al Capone became mobsters by osmosis as well?
gaz
@FlipYrWhig: to me, “neoliberal” is a global political term.
I’d say that both our parties have been (since FDR anyway) more or less neoliberal, with the right winding it’s way toward neofeudal/neofascist.
I’m not in any danger of confusing the term neoliberal with liberal – not because they are so different from a global perspective (neoliberal is more or less an evolution of liberalism – when taking a long global view of politics and economics)
but unqualified use of the word liberal is something I take as read to mean “American-liberal” which is decidedly different than “American-conservative” although globally both (at the VERY LEAST over the latter half of the 20th century, and early 21st) are both generally neoliberal when it comes to broad policy positions – ignoring of course, the last decade in which the GOP has gone off rails and is accelerating toward fascism and/or feudalism…
Which leads me the other problem of micro-labelling… we’re diving into a rabbit hole just discussing it…
gaz
@Zagloba:
I guess that’s a relative thing, depending on who’s reading me.
;)
gaz
@Corner Stone: Kevin Drum is more boring than GG.
Which is why I didn’t even mention him.
I don’t really give a damn what he says. He’s milquetoast.
Ben Franklin
GG update-He still hasn’t heard from Drum
El Tiburon
@Marc:
Perhaps you can cite one example. I mean, you took the time to type up a lot of garbage, so I know you have some time on your hands. So instead of just tossing out unfounded accusations, why don’t you cite some examples.
If there is one thing about a Greenwald Hater it is this: They are incapable of backing up any of their assertions with any facts. Much like Mistermix here and others before him, they lazily toss out some bullshit to satiate their hatred. And 99.9% of the time they end up with egg all over their face.
Set you clock by it.
gaz
@El Tiburon: NDAA
his twitterpation that lead him to troll the BJ forums and get his ass handed to him in the thread.
I’m pretty sure his shame is still archived in these hallowed halls.
JWL
Certain people will always confuse loyalty to party with loyalty to Constitution and country.
El Tiburon
Ok, thanks.
That was a huge help. So the best you have is perhaps a thread here where some said he was wrong.
You have convinced me.
Another commonality amongst Greenwald Haters: when asked to cite an example, usually the best they can do is reference some thread form some point in the past where there was disagreement.
Regarding the NDAA, if you recall correctly, Greenwald, along with other entities, such as the ACLU, had big problems there. If you recall correctly, there was a disagreement in terms. But to claim Greenwald was wrong or left out facts or somehow skewed his presentation is complete and utter bullshit.
So, as I always do, I’ll ask again: cite one example where Greenwald was wrong or didn’t present all the facts.
Bruce S
Since Zandar asserted in the post linked that Kevin Drum apparently thinks Obama is “worse than Bush”, I don’t really see Drum being the good guy in this journalistic kerfluffle.
Oh wait a minute. Drum never said any such thing. Not even close. The two guys making wild assertions are Greenwald and…uh…Zandar. That is, indeed, the definition of a Balloon Juice Dilemma. But not an atypical one.
El Tiburon
@Bruce S:
What are these ‘wild assertins’?
gaz
@El Tiburon:
We don’t catalog GG’s every wrong move. Seriously, at least some of us (still) have jobs.
Since you’re such a fanboi, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea already of the specifics…
but here’s some broad examples of GG’s (many and innumerable) failings:
1. The awful double down on the nun-rape analogy here at BJ
2. The misrepresentation of the NDAA bill, which he knew better, and SPECIFICALLY left out clauses that were inconvenient to his point.
3. Cheerleading a racist like Ron Paul
4. Hyperbole in just about everything he writes.
etc…
I don’t really give a fuck if you choose to ignore it, GG flying monkey.
He’s still an ass – and my bullshit detector still cries bloody murder over about 40% of what he writes.
Did you ever stop and wonder why he’s at Salon (along with the likes of David Sirota? hah!)
Since he’s such a fine young libertarian, did you ever wonder if he could actually hold down a real job?
Did you ever find it curious that he won’t mention Ron Paul’s blatant pandering to homophobic religious crazies?
No. you don’t think about those things.
It’s easier that way.
Wouldn’t want to damage that beautiful mind of yours.
El Tiburon
@gaz:
Perhaps you need a course in understanding english. Where was Greenwald factually wrong in any of this? That is the issue here. I could give a rat’s ass what you or anyone thinks of Greenwald. But when you assert he is wrong, and you toss out garbage like “cheerleading a racist like Ron Paul” then you are showing your ass as an idiot.
Disagreeing with someone doesn’t make the other person wrong on the facts.
And misrepresenting the NDAA. Bullshit. He had is take, as did the ACLU and others, and other intelligent people had their take.
Putz.
El Tiburon
@gaz:
I just read this portion. Sorry. I did not fully realize who I was dealing with here. Please disregard my prior comment as well.
gaz
@El Tiburon: so now the goalposts have nothing to do with mendacity.
If he just chose to ignore/omit basic facts of what he’s writing about (like the NDAA) when they undermine his point, that’s okay then.
Enjoy.
Bruce S
el Tiburon – the complaint – and it didn’t originate with me so I’m taking it as face value and was more concerned with showing the irony given the linked “wild assertion” against Drum that was rooted in some sort of hysterics about anything less than saluting the President – was that Greenwald ascribed a motive that wasn’t provable and which attempted to negate another rationale for the detention that makes more sense in context.
I really wasn’t commenting on Greenwald, but more on a form of nonsensical and wildly counter-productive “Obama sycophancy” that shows up in these threads too often. There’s a famous picture of LBJ and MLK that Melissa Harris Perry referred to on her show – the problem, per Perry’s point, is that too many people look at that image and think Obama is “MLK”, while in fact he’s “LBJ” with all of the complications that implies. It’s infantile. It’s like folks who believed that “Organizing for America” was about organizing anythiing “for America” other than the 2012 Obama re-election campaign. That’s fine – “I’m in” – but don’t bullshit me or commit political malpractice by dishonestly conflating electoral politics – and electoral politics focused on the top office, rather than a congressional majority – with the social movements that we mostly don’t have, and which could give the Obama presidency some real potency – as they did FDR and LBJ.
TG Chicago
Wait, it’s Greenwald who goes “one step further than reporting will allow”?
Greenwald(*) says there’s much evidence that shows Shaye was a reporter and none that he was a terrorist. Drum says “well, there just must be some evidence they’re keeping secret”
But it’s Greenwald who’s going beyond the reported facts? That’s preposterous.
(*)And Scahill. And Amnesty. And Human Rights Watch. And FAIR. And a bunch of other groups.
Wee Bey
Just so it’s on the record:
Charles Pierce= What a smart liberal sounds like
Glenn Greenwald= A stupid liberal’s version of what a smart liberal sounds like.
les
@Daniel T.:
What universe was that again?
Marc
@El Tiburon:
I said that he omitted information that was inconvenient for whatever he pushes, and he does this routinely.
For example, here is Greenwald on Obama’s AIPAC speech:
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/05/obama_iran_and_preventive_war/
“In other words, he categorically committed the U.S. to an offensive military attack on Iran in order to prevent that country from acquiring a nuclear weapon; as AP put it: “President Barack Obama said Sunday the United States will not hesitate to attack Iran with military force to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
Sounds dire, right?
Well, here is the New York Times on the same subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/world/middleeast/in-aipac-speech-obama-warns-against-loose-talk-of-war.html
“In a forceful address to the group, the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Mr. Obama declared that he would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran and would act — with military force, if necessary — to prevent that from happening.
But he made it clear that he did not believe that a strike on Iran would serve the interests of either the United States or Israel. And he chided his Republican critics for, as he described it, putting politics ahead of American national security interests.
“Already, there is too much loose talk of war,” Mr. Obama said. “Over the last few weeks such talk has only benefited the Iranian government by driving up the price of oil, which they depend on to fund their nuclear program.
“For the sake of Israel’s security, America’s security and the peace and security of the world, now is not the time for bluster.”
—————————–
Did you notice the parts that Glenn didn’t talk about? The lines that he didn’t quot and ignored when constructing his fantasy about how Obama pushed us closer to war?
————–
He did include facts. But he also left *important* facts out. That is the mark of a propagandist, not a truth-teller.
Corner Stone
You’re not really covering yourself in glory here mistermix.
Drum’s colleague Adam Serwer is calling bullshit. On Kevin Drum.
Is Barack Obama A Murderous Sociopath? Wrong Question
And FAIR seems to disagree with your trenchant analysis as well:
Why Is It Hard to Believe President Obama Would Want a Journalist in Prison?
FAIR goes on to list seem pretty clear examples where the US Govt has deliberately targeted journalists in military zones.
Bruce S
(“Greenwald’s) behavior has made me reassess some matters from the Bush era”
Wow! Really? Glenn Greenwald was your primary source for evaluating “the Bush era”? That comes under the category of “your bad.” Greenwald has obviously been a strident polemicist since day one. I would hate for there to be no Glenn Greenwalds because they often make noise that is useful and relevant, but I would never rely on voices like that as a primary source of information or analysis – and certainly not for context.
El Tiburon
So, mistermix, can you tell us where Greenwald was wrong?
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
Lynn Sutherland
Have you bothered to listen to Scahill’s interview with Amy Goodwin on Democracy Now? Greenwald links to it on his latest post and it answers all of your questions and supports everything that Greenwald has accused Obama of doing. Now granted, it takes a little time to listen to–more time than writing a post here bashing Greenwald–and probably even more time to reconsider what all this blind worship of Obama is all about. When it comes to reporting the news, Scahill and Greenwald must be listened to–they come closer to the truth than most. I just don’t understand the slavish worship of Obama that goes on here–it is truly mind blowing.
TooManyJens
@Zagloba: You can’t seriously still be flogging the “Ron Paul’s not a racist” line. Deliberately whipping up the fear and hate of racists for your own personal gain is a racist act. Doing so for years reveals a lot about one’s character. I don’t care that Paul opposes the War on Drugs (well, I care, because the WoD is a catastrophe) or even that he talks about how racist it is; that doesn’t mean that he cannot also be racist.
Marc
@Bruce S:
My comment was more general than that. A common rejoinder from Greenwald apologists is that I would never tolerate Bush doing things that Obama is doing. My reaction at this point is that it isn’t my tolerance for illegality that has changed. I see clear cases where people like Glenn are not being honest, and this colors my belief in whether to take their evidence seriously. And this includes their prior work, which I now doubt for the same reason.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Lynn Sutherland:
What planet are you from?
Marc
@Lynn Sutherland:
It’s pretty revealing that you’re claiming that any criticism of Dear Leader Glenn can only spring from slavish devotion to Obama.
El Tiburon
@Marc:
Look, the fact is and remains that Obama categorically affirmed that he would most definitely consider a military strike. This can’t be denied. Whatever else Obama said is really irrelevant to the main thrust of the argument: Obama will attack Iran. This simply can’t be denied.
Just because Obama SAYS he has the most transparent administration, facts prove him wrong. So the MOST important take-away from Obama’s speech is that he confirmed he would attack Iran. Yes, that does sound dire. It sounds very dire. Have you been paying attention as this country is putting in place the ingredients to attack Iran? And the President just announced he would do it. Any caveats after the fact don’t change that one iota.
Also, Greenwald linked to the article. The facts were NOT hidden.
kc
I like Kevin Drum. Sure, he gets things wrong sometimes, but hey, who doesn’t?
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
fixeed for accuracy
Corner Stone
@Marc:
If it’s not your tolerance for illegality, then what did change?
TooManyJens
@Marc: I stopped reading Greenwald in 2006 because he was leveling accusations against Bush that I didn’t think were supported by the evidence given. I hated Bush as much as anybody, but Greenwald was starting to seem really unreliable. Greenwald might be right or he might be wrong, but that he says something doesn’t give it any weight in my mind.
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
It’s a rational question…
eemom
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
She’s a Greenwald robo-flunky who is automatically programmed to crawl out of the woodwork when a Greenwald thread reaches a certain number of comments.
If I didn’t already know it, my visit to the Supreme Court yesterday really kind of put Glennzie in perspective as the insignificant, sniveling little insect that he is.
Bruce S
Marc – since I was pro-Afghan intervention and wished Bush had done more “surgical targeting” of al Qaeda early on, I don’t have a lot of those qualms now with Obama. I consider the Bush administration the worst in my lifetime for their taking the target off of bin Laden, completely blowing the Afghanistan intervention which might have had better outcome earlier on if it had remained the focus, and ginning up an utterly insane war in Iraq on false pretenses – which I knew were false at the time, in the sense of being relentlessly hyped and distorted against any rational assessment – with the predictable outcome being, in effect, a “win” for Iran in the regional context. I don’t hate Bush because he went too far in exterminating al Qaeda, but because he didn’t make that the mission after 9/11 and abused a national tragedy in service of pre-existing, wildly irresponsible neo-con schemes. I don’t endorse everything Obama has done in the name of national security – he’s the fucking President of the United States which ex-officio means he’s in some muddy waters – but strategically and in terms of communicating a sense of responsibility to the troops he commands, he is a world apart from the Bush administration.
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
It’s fascinating how you’ve completely absorbed Greenwald’s style of argumentation: if Obama says he will not rule out the possibility of attacking Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program, that means he positively will do it and the only remaining question is when it will happen.
If, by this time next year, Obama has not authorized an attack on Iran, will you or Greenwald admit to any error? Or will you keep pushing the attack horizon on into infinity, secure in your belief that Obama will eventually attack Iran even if he hasn’t actually done it?
Corner Stone
@Ben Franklin: Nope, and I’m going to kick her* ass again in this year’s NCAA March Madness Bracket.
She doesn’t stand a chance!
*it’s actually ex-wife but nonetheless the beatings shall continue.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
…until morale improves, I assume.
Corner Stone
@Ben Franklin: or she learns how to better evaluate NCAA men’s basketball teams.
Either way.
Marc
@El Tiburon:
Come on. You asked for an example to back up my specific claim: Greenwald leaves important things out when they conflict with the idea that he is pushing. He does this a lot, and it leads people in the wrong direction. For example, your discussion is going to be warped if you ignore evidence that Obama is trying to avoid a war, and present only information that he might consider one.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Ben Franklin:
So Scahill (who I don’t know about) supports everything Greenwald alleges against Obama. Thanks, but no thanks, I’ve seen that movie, and we have many many threads debunking GG’s bullshit highlighting his personal hatred for Barack Obama. And his supporters.
To put it more succinctly, I don’t believe a single word that comes from the mouth of GG. I have no respect for him, and due to his attacks on a couple of prominent black female bloggers, he can DIAF, for all I care. You want to waste your time on half baked conspiracy and legal theories of a rage monkey protest person, have at it. I have better things to do. You might get Cole to watch it though.
Mnemosyne
@TooManyJens:
Whenever I read him, it seems as though his facts are in order, but the conclusions that he draws from those facts seem wildly overblown (Obama told AIPAC that he was not ruling out an attack on Iran, so therefore an attack is imminent!)
But apparently any qualms about his conclusions put you into the camp of mindless, Obama-worshipping authoritarians. Don’t worry, it’s nice in our camp — we have cookies! ;-)
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
Whose administration was more transparent than Obama’s? Please name it.
Lynn Sutherland
Ummm, I asked if anyone had bothered to listen to Scahill’s interview on Democracy Now. Why does that mean I live on another planet? Does that mean I slavishly follow Greenwald? The point is that a very brave journalist is in jail and Obama appears to be responsible for it–can we discuss the evidence for this? Obama’s penchant for prosecuting whistleblowers could also be an interesting tangent to this discussion. These things are happening. Does it help if we ignore them and cover them up? Why can’t all of these issues be discussed and perhaps we could stop them. Oh, and all of the drone bombing of innocent Arabs–that’s another one that’s troubling–guess we overlook that one too.
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
I am a little surprised at your lack of curiosity. But I understand your reticence.
Marc
@Lynn Sutherland:
Well, the original point was that people like Greenwald take thin shreds of evidence and stretch them into sweeping attacks on Obama. Are you trying to provide additional examples? Or just trying to change the subject?
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Lynn Sutherland:
I’m not giving you clowns a minute of my time to waste on your paranoid bullshit conspiracy theories. Have Greenwald file a lawsuit on Obama, for whatever he thinks he’s guilty of.
And the leakers of classified documents the DOJ is prosecuting are not “whistleblowers”, they are alleged criminals. These are whistleblowers being dealt with by the OBama DOJ.
How about we debate that, or a front pager puts up a thread on it?
marduk
Drum partly sorta kinda walks back his previous post.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Ben Franklin:
Apparently, you don’t understand. It is not a lack of curiosity. It is an abundance of previous experience dealing with lying liar Obama haters. For the same reasons I don’t read tea bagger accounts of finding the wingnut “whitey Tape”. THEY.HAVE.NOTHING
Ben Franklin
@marduk:
That’s Serwer, not Drum. Drum doesn’t respond to comments, or critiques of his posts.
Zagloba
Hardly! RP is a flaming, flagrant racist, and I’m happy to say so to whoever asks.
What I am still flogging are the following very, very simple claims:
Greenwald has never defended Ron Paul on his racism.
Greenwald has never endorsed Ron Paul’s candidacy.
And the only way in which Greenwald can be said to have “supported” Ron Paul is by saying that Paul is the only candidate who can get on national TV and start the conversation that Greenwald wants us to be having about endless war and public accountability.
Any time I or El Tib or whoever brings this up, people start talking about how if only I could read at an adult level, I’d see how false these claims are. Well pardon my own personal Dunning-Krueger effect for not realizing how poor my reading comprehension is, when the notion that Greenwald actually means what he says has just as much textual support.
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Ok. Now I understand.
Johnny
Drum is a sycophant, a boot-licker, in other terms, a loyal democrat.
No matter what, the President is a great guy, he’s an honorable guy, he’s a man of the people.
The 11th. dimensional chess game playing out in Drums mind in order to support what he would otherwise call a travesty, must be a sight to see.
Democrats good, republicans bad….. That’s NOT JOURNALISM, that’s carrying someones water, that’s sucking them off, that’s nothing worthy of a voice at all actually.
A real person of integrity and honor, holds the people they like an those they dislike to the same standards, they don’t change what you’re willing to be honest about just because it’s ‘his guy’ being talked about. That’s being a sycophantic water boy, and many other things, like dishonest, zero integrity and a HACK.
Drum iisn’t fit to carry the jockstrap of real JOURNALISTS, like Greenwald, Scahill and Tiabbi. Drum’s just a stenographer, a cheerleader and a hack.
Heliopause
@marduk:
Pathetic. It boils down to, “the truth, gosh, who’s to know.” Sure glad we have journalists to remind us of this timeless verity.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Ben Franklin:
Good, let us not speak of this again.
TooManyJens
@Zagloba: Ah, OK. Sorry I misunderstood you then.
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly my problem with him, yes. If people want to say that makes us mindless O-bots, well, haters gonna hate.
Mnemosyne
@Zagloba:
It’s a good thing that giving Ron Paul a public platform means that he will only talk about the things Greenwald wants Paul to talk about. Paul certainly wouldn’t use that public platform to talk about how the Civil Rights Act “destroyed privacy” and paved the way for the PATRIOT Act.
So clearly it’s A-OK for Greenwald to tout Ron Paul’s beliefs since Paul would never talk about anything but Greenwald’s pet subjects.
Corner Stone
@Marc:
By “original point” do you mean mistermix’s assertion, where he attempts to use Kevin Drum’s article as evidence?
Because that is quite clearly a poor choice on mistermix’s part.
Zagloba
@TooManyJens: No worries. And yes, I agree with you and Mnemosyne that the man needs at least one of (a) an editor who can control his tone, or (b) a chill pill.
Lynn Sutherland
I answered your accusation that Greenwald takes “thin shreds” of evidence and spins them into conspiracy theories. Please listen to Scahill’s interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. There are clips of interviews with Yemen activists, reports on the sham trial that Shaye received, condemnations from human rights groups and an interview with a journalist who heads an organization that defends reporters who have been tortured and jailed. Scahill’s story appears in the most recent issue of The Nation. The level of argument and refutation here from all you Greenwald haters is not very impressive.
dmbeaster
@wilfred:
I think most people’s thinking on this subject can be summed up with “Nader.”
It is pretty clear that GG sees Obama as as bad as/worse than Bush Jr., and frankly, anyone of that stripe is a moron.
Plus, it is pretty clear that Drum is right about GG’s error, and GG is unable to come to grips with that. Yes, I read the comment thread in Drum’s post and GG’s writings, which do not do anything to undermine Drum’s point.
liberal
@Marc:
Huh? Obama has, in fact, pushed us closer to war.
It’s fine to argue that, given certain facts on the ground (influence of AIPAC, etc), this is the best Obama could have done, it’s a lot better than anyone else could do, etc, but in a literal sense he’s certainly pushed us closer to war. Just like actions taken by Clinton in the late 1990s pushed us closer to war with Iraq. Yes, IMHO if Bush hadn’t been allowed to steal the 2000 election, Gore would not have actually gone ahead with an invasion involving boots on the ground, but the fact is that Clinton did push us closer to war.
Furthermore, in the passage you quoted, Obama is pleading to allow sanctions etc to work. But I don’t see how he’s not committed the US to attack Iran in that speech if all else fails to prevent them from building a nuke.
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Exsqueeze me! I have not made any such agreement. I regularly read
right-wing bs because I want their information.
I don’t understand your methodology.
‘Keep your friends close, enemies closer’, is mine. You can keep yours.
marduk
@Ben Franklin: Oops, wrong link. Too bad for all the idiots who went to the mat for him. GG can suck as a polemecist and still be making good points sometimes, ya know. Drum’s post was garbage regardless of how you feel about GG.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
This word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Especially once you couple it with the Clinton example.
Zagloba
Que?
Look, man, do you recognize the difference between saying that someone is having the right conversation, and saying that they’re on the right side of the right conversation?
One of the hobbyhorses that Greenwald does beat quite mercilessly is the idea that, because the Obama administration has adopted a lot of policies that a lot of Democrats and their allies opposed under the previous administration, the public conversation has been just shut down on those policies. And I don’t know about you, but if I were a civil liberties blogger I’d hate to have to change the subject every time I wanted to talk about civil liberties. As long as Paul’s in the race or the public eye, Greenwald won’t have to be changing the damn subject every time he wants to write a post.
dogwood
@Lynn Sutherland:
Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? GG “must be listened to” because you say so? I didn’t take Greenwald seriously during the Bush years, so why would I start now? He’s a great blogger for identifying villains, going after their motivations, and revving up anger in people who live to be angry. There’s a market for that, and GG serves it well.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Ben Franklin:
I didn’t think you understood. I don’t consider GG an enemy. I consider him and the idiots that hang on every dishonest word of his, to be idiots. I don’t keep idiots close, or closer. Sometimes I mock them, other times dismiss them. Eventually, both.
GG and Scahill, and whoever, probly ought to stop wanking allegations on blogs, and start filing lawsuits to promote their theories of wrong doing. And other means of gaining more info, instead of rivers of speculation and shark jumping.
And for you. How about you start stating what you really mean, and stop with the cryptic passive aggressive quips, about how you understand. You don’t.
Ben Franklin
@marduk:
If Drum just read comments on original thread, he could have written the walkabout much earlier, and with less negative attention.
Riilism
@Donald:
Okay, apparently we’ve got people who believe blind speculation is evidence of something. I’m no innocent, you feculent twit. I know full well our democratically elected government has supported vicious dictatorships for what (at the time at least) seemed to be in our strategic interest (often to find later that it was not).
In this instance, I have no idea why the Obama administration may be supporting keeping this man in prison. What is quite clear from Greenwald’s response to Drum is that he doesn’t know for certain either, though that hasn’t stopped him from speculating. I guess you’re supporting Greenwald’s contention that Obama is doing it to support the regime? Fine, you have an opinion, goody for you.
Myself, I was responding to Greenwald’s 5th point in response to Drum. As I said, apparently Obama may not be a sociopath, but may in fact be the uwitting/witting tool of sociopaths (sociopath by proxy if you will). I guess we’ll have to trust Greenwald to speculate further in one of his updates to know for sure…
Marc
@liberal:
And if you only read what Glenn wrote you would *not know* that Obama had also pushed back on the war talk in very important ways. This is actually a very good example of my problem with Greenwald – because later in the same day Obama clearly attacked those who were pushing for war. The entire remainder of the article is an extended riff on how we were being pushed to war, with only a narrow range of opinions, etc. etc.
And yet the President attacked warmongers in a speech given on the same day and this just happened not to factor into the article that Glenn wrote.
He does things like this repeatedly. And when someone uses this trick you eventually have to start wondering what else they’re not telling you. It’s like David Brooks playing with numbers to make believe that the 1 percent aren’t the real problem. His numbers are usually technically correct, yet designed to lead you where he wants you to go.
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
I understand once you clarify. You do understand I’m not one of the dolts who hang on every GG idea. He speculates. So do I. I don’t take his word as gospel, but I am willing to listen to ideas. That’s because I place much more gravitas on behavior, less so than mere words.
Sometimes speculation is necessary because salient info is not available. I look for consistency, then when something appears aberrant, I dismiss without supporting data. But when a pattern is visible, I look at it heuristically. That’s my thing. Certainly doesn’t have to be yours.
chopper
@Johnny:
lolwut?
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Ben Franklin:
There are a lot of people with ideas out there, and we have to choose which ones are worth our limited time to consume. You choose Greenwald and the like, I choose to spend my time listening to others. I already said, from long experience of considering Mr. G’s words, I have concluded he is patently dishonest. Why would I spend my time listening to him then? But I can understand where you might.
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
This characterization of my comment is so wildly off the mark. I never implied in any form or fashion that the attack is imminent. My point was, in response to another commenter, was that Obama stated clearly that he would attack Iran. Any qualifiers after that doesn’t change this fact.
It doesn’t mean he will positively do it. My bet is he won’t do it. But again, it does not change the fact that Obama said it, and that was the point of the entire discussion.
Pay attention.
Zagloba
A fair point. OF course, it’s ultimately a judgement call to say that someone, whether journalist, historian, teacher, whatever, isn’t telling “the whole story”. You’ve passed the point where you think Greenwald is ignoring the real story. Others haven’t.
To take just the example you are mentioning: I agree that the facts you mention as being omitted are important and need to be incorporated into whatever story gets distilled from the situation. I also think that part of that story needs to be that no position less hawkish than “war is preferable to Iran’s acquiring of a nuclear weapon” is politically imaginable in front of the audience at AIPAC — a story that I don’t even see being covered on MSNBC on weekend mornings, let alone in any other for-profit news bureau’s coverage or analysis.
El Tiburon
@Marc:
Important information? By whose definition? Again, how does Obama saying he would rather not bomb Iran change the fact that Obama explicitly stated he would bomb Iran? It doesn’t. In fact, Obama has said a lot of things that his actions don’t back up.
Who is ignoring the evidence? The evidence is right there in the link. I can click on the link and read it and see the full context of the quote. But here is the bottom line: Obama has explicitly stated he will bomb Iran to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon. Do you disagree with this characterization of what he said?
Everything after that is just puffery.
FlipYrWhig
@Riilism:
I’m not following this latest dust-up, but from past readings of Greenwald I would say that is a characteristic maneuver of his. Read statements, make deductions from statements, assume deductions from statements are the only logical reasons for the statements to have been made. Then when challenged, point to the statement; then when challenged further, dismiss the challenger as a reflexive and unthinking defender of the views Greenwald has deduced and/or the public figure making the statement he’s interpreting. I really don’t think he knows that that’s hardly an unimpeachable way to argue.
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
A little secret about Obama’s transparency
El Tiburon
@Lynn Sutherland:
Yes. If you don’t automatically shit on Greenwald like all the other drones around here, then you are a Greenbot.
El Tiburon
@Marc:
Such complete and utter bullshit. If Greenwald is guilty of anything, it is providing too much evidence.
Greenwalds thin shreds of evidence: an in-depth report by one of the leading investigative journalists in this country, Jeremy Scahill.
El Tiburon
@dmbeaster:
This is only clear if you get your GG information from this blog.
Greenwald specializes in civil liberties. And it would be hard to find anyone with a working brain who would disagree with this assertion: On MANY policies, Obama is proving to be worse than Bush regarding civil liberties.
If you ever took the time to read Greenwald, you would realize this. But it is much easier, like Fox News, to just make up shit and to spew it as fact.
Marc
@Zagloba:
That’s a very good and fair point – and it was even more true of the lead-up to the Iraq war. The way that dissent there was marginalized radicalized many of us.
But you only have to look as far as others in this thread to see how this game can cut both ways. A lot of people in the US today have wrapped themselves in environments where they don’t get any information that they might disagree with. Most are on the right – Fox news and talk radio – but there is a real cadre on the left who are firmly planted in their own bubble.
I try hard to be skeptical of things that I want to believe. That’s why I value people who tell me the whole picture – i.e. telling me even things that don’t help them, or fairly describing their opponents position before disagreeing with it. It’s just too easy to fool yourself, and then be unable to comprehend how anyone could disagree with you. It’s then a short step to railing against Obamabots or feminazis whenever you step outside of the bubble.
El Tiburon
@Zagloba:
Haters gonna hate. Try not to use too much rational logic, or his brain may ooze completely out of his skull.
Jeff
Lol at all the phoney paper progressives hating on greenwald, you have exposed yourselves.
MBunge
“On MANY policies, Obama is proving to be worse than Bush regarding civil liberties.”
Someone doesn’t know the meaning of the words “many” or “worse”.
Mike
Mnemosyne
@Zagloba:
The “right conversation” is saying that the underlying cause of the PATRIOT Act is the Civil Rights Act, and we’ll all be better off if we get rid of the Civil Rights Act?
That’s my problem with bringing Ron Paul into the conversation as a club to use against Democrats — his premises are so fucked up that you can’t really have the conversation at all because you keep running into roadblocks like Paul’s claim that the Civil Rights Act is an attack on our civil liberties.
Personally, I’m glad he’s in the Republican race because he forces the Republicans to be exposed to some of this stuff from the right, but it certainly doesn’t put Paul “on the left of Obama” as Greenwald has claimed. A left-wing pacifist and a right-wing isolationist may both be anti-war, but it’s virtually impossible to have a conversation with any depth past “we both don’t want wars.”
Oh, and since my nym is not totally clear, it should be, “Look, lady …”
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
Wait, Laura Bush’s former press secretary says that Obama is less transparent than Bush was? Well, it must be true then! I mean, it’s not like Malcolm has ever been caught lying in his column or anything.
Marc
@El Tiburon:
You really are digging in, aren’t you? It’s pretty amazing how you are literally incapable of admitting that Greenwald did anything wrong in the piece that I quoted.
Let’s say that you say something, and I quote half of it, ignore the rest, and write an entire piece on the half that I quoted. By your “logic” it’s all totally OK as long as I provide a link so that someone can check it themselves. Even if the things that I left out change the story in very important ways.
I’m a scientist. Good scientists confront the strongest opposing arguments, not the weakest ones. They fairly describe other ways of looking at the data. And they don’t leave out inconvenient facts.
Ben Franklin
This is a problem. Microbial barriers keep the good germs out, as well.
We’re a Nation of germophobes who sanitize everything. Our immune systems bolster when exposed to the little guys. Same with ideas.
Riilism
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m neither a fan nor do I hate Greenwald. but statements like this:
should give anyone pause. It’s a guess. It’s speculation. And it assumes the worst possible motives, the least justifiable rationales and apparently should be seen as a reasonable alternative to presidential sociopathy. I not not claiming that Obama is above reproach, and Obama may actually be doing precisely what Greenwald thinks is far more likely (anything is possible). But if you begin dealing in “likelihoods”, perhaps you should be a bit more cautious in your editorializing. Assuming, of course, your goal is elucidation rather than denigration….
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
Wait, what? So Obama said that he would bomb Iran, which Greenwald claimed meant that it’s only a matter of time until Obama will bomb Iran, but now you’re backing off and saying, well, Obama says lots of things his actions don’t back up, so he probably won’t bomb Iran.
At AIPAC, Obama said pretty much the same thing about Iran that he’s been saying since 2008: he doesn’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, he prefers that it be a negotiated settlement, but he won’t completely rule out bombing them. So why is Greenwald presenting this like it’s some kind of new and vital information?
El Tiburon
@Marc:
Direct quote from Greenwald article (my bold):
So, Mr. Science Smarty Pants, do you want to walk-back your entire thesis here?
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
Perhaps you can show me this.
I did find this from the article:
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
Gee, I have no clue. Perhaps it is because Greenwald wrote this directly AFTER Obama spoke at AIPAC, which makes it new.
And vital? Have you been paying attention to the rumblings for war with Iran that is almost identical to the lead up to war with Iraq?
So, our power elites seem to be gunning for yet another war. Our President announces at AIPAC that we “got Israel’s back” and that he will definitely attack Iran.
But to you, this neither new nor vital? In-fucking-credible.
FlipYrWhig
@Riilism: Exactly. He proceeds as though there’s no difference between evidence and speculation based on that evidence. Habitually. Time was, the blogosphere used to mock formulations like “disturbing, if true” and “is it irresponsibe to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.”
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
President Obama’s muddy transparency record
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73606.html#ixzz1pDPYbRMH
Zagloba
@Mnemosyne: mea culpa on the gender! And do you see how your argument about Paul and the Civil Rights Act applies equally well to any discussion where one of the sides is completely wrong? It’s better to be in an argument with a kook than have no way of influencing the public conversation.
Ben Franklin
Mockery from the fundamentally incurious.
Marc
@El Tiburon:
Christ almighty. He throws out a single line in the middle of his attack about how Obama might (for now!) want to avoid war with Iran. How..generous.
But he concludes with
——————-
Whatever else is true, by having President Obama issue these clear and inflexible threats against Iran to which the nation is now bound, the once-controversial notion of “preventive war” just became much more normalized and bipartisan. Witness the virtually complete lack of objections to President Obama’s threats from either party to see how true that is.
——————
Jesus. He’s asserted that the US is bound to go to war because of a single speech that a president made. This is literally the opposite of what virtually everyone else took from the speech. A single throw-away line in the middle, contradicted by everything else that he says and unsupported, doesn’t count. You wouldn’t tolerate that fig leaf from anyone that you didn’t defend so slavishly.
And then he quotes “updates” that don’t mention what everyone else reported – that Obama specifically called out the people advocating for war – but instead focus on hawks in Israel being enthusiastic.
You are less informed after reading that Greenwald article than you were before you started. And you see nothing wrong with the omissions. Amazing.
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
So are we definitely going to be attacking Iran, as you say, or does the administration “want to avoid a war with Iran, at least for now,” as Greenwald says? Even Greenwald seems to admit that this is not new information coming from Obama, but a re-statement of things he’s been saying all along.
Sorry, I missed the quotes where Sec. of State Clinton testified in front of the UN that Iran definitely has nuclear weapons, or where VP Biden quoted an anonymous source in the NY Times that turned out to be himself saying that Iran has banned weapons, or where National Security Advisor Thomas Donlion said, “We don’t want the smoking gun to turn out to be a mushroom cloud.” Can you please point me to the stories where Obama administration officials are going on a full-court press for war the same way that Bush administration officials did in the months before we invaded Iraq?
The best part of this, of course, is that you’ve now put yourself in a position where you’re disagreeing with Greenwald since you quoted him saying that the Obama administration is not actually pressing for war. I guess a headline saying “Obama speech to AIPAC states same policy as past 4 years” isn’t as eye-catching and wouldn’t give Greenwald as many blog hits.
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
Oh, well, if Politico says it, it must be true. They certainly have no record of distorting the facts on anything, after all.
Can you maybe find at least one person on the left to support your points instead of pulling all of your attacks from former Bush administration officials?
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
Perhaps part of my phrasing was inprecise: Obama clearly stated he would attack Iran IF they were pursuing nuclear weapons.
This is what he said. Why do you insist on this ludicrous nutpicking?
Look, if my son just dropped a big turd inside my car, and I say, “I’m going to whip your ass if you do that again, but I really don’t want to. I’d prefer not to, so don’t put another turd in there. But if you do, I’m going to take my belt off and spank you.”
Is this kind of statement to complex for you to process? Fact is I announced my intentions to whip his ass. And if the debate is whether or not El Tiburon announced he would whip his son’s ass, the answer is most definitely yes. It doesn’t mean I’m going to.
Same thing here: the debate is that Obama categorically announced he would attack Iran in a preventative posture. He made it clear he would continue the neocon policy of so-called preventative war. In other words, normalizing even further that we will continue to attack countries that have not attacked us. Doesn’t mean he will, but he said he would. Why is it so hard?
Riilism
@El Tiburon:
I like and trust Scahill. He’s an excellent journalist and I enjoy seeing him on Maddow. And having read Scahill’s article that everyone has recommended I conclude that Drum is correct in his assessment that Scahill is circumspect and Greenwald isn’t.
Scahill provides facts, background, and statements (along with attempts to clarify or confirm information that was given). Even the headline of his article (not certain if Scahill wrote it), “Why Is President Obama Keeping a Journalist in Prison in Yemen?” presents the reader with a question that should be asked of the administration. Why is this man being held? What is this evidence that this man is associated with AQAP?
Greenwald’s headline is “Obama’s personal role in a journalist’s imprisonment”. From there we are told what conclusions to draw and what opinion’s to have including a helpful video explaining why American progressives are so willing, even eager, to overlook Obama’s abuses in these areas.
I’d ask you to please don’t conflate these two. Scahill is a journalist. Greenwald has a mission. They are not the same…
TooManyJens
@Jeff: You know Greenwald’s not a progressive, right? Just checking.
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
Are you just being an asshole for the fun of it? Politico said nothing. They were quoting some other person who is involved with FOIA requests.@Mnemosyne:
Wow, so you’re the kid running around with your fingers stuck in your ears saying NA NA NA NA I can’t hear YOu!
manual
You can disagree with greenwald, but drum’s argument is too fatuous and manichean. Was lyndon johnson a murderer, like every other us president? Yes, he was. But I still liked medicare and the war on poverty.
Obama’s no different. He’s not your friend. He is the president of an empire and will act accordingly. Does this mean he hasnt done good things. No. Does this mean I cannot like the affordable care act or DADT. No. But saying either you think he’s a sociopath or you are wrong is so reductive and pathetic. I doubt most president’s – bush included – are intrinsically bad, but institutions have their own power. Again, barack obama is not your friend. he’s your president.
AxelFoley
@wilfred:
You base this off of comments on a blog? And Greenwald’s blog at that?
LOL, GTFO
WeeBey
If you take Greenwald seriously, you’re a fucking moron.
It’s that easy.
MBunge
@El Tiburon: “Obama clearly stated he would attack Iran IF they were pursuing nuclear weapons.”
And saying “I’ll never attack Iran under any circumstances, not even if they nuke Tel Aviv” would be better and more diplomatically useful…how?
Mike
El Tiburon
@Riilism:
Oh please. Nobody is told to do anything. Greenwald processes the information and gives his take on it. It’s what almost ALL bloggers and pundits do. Believe him or don’t believe him. Perhaps you can be led around by the nose and told what to think, but that is your issue. I would like to think most of us here on this blog can take information and process it and make our own decisions.
And what is this mission?
Ben Franklin
@El Tiburon:
Why, to displace Obama for Ron Paul. Why do you ask?
El Tiburon
@MBunge:
Seriously, some of you are worse than Fox News.
Pursuing a nuclear weapon = nuking Israel. Is this correct? Also, too, is it possible to conflate a nuclear program for energy as one for weapons? Also, too, you are in agreement then with a so-called “preventative” strike on Iran? In other words, you agree with bombing and killing people even they have done nothing against the US? Or its allies? Then you are Dick Cheney.
El Tiburon
@TooManyJens:
How do you know this? What is a progressive? And what would you consider Greenwald?
Ben Franklin
@El Tiburon:
Just a word to the wise. The Posse is here to discourage disunity behind Obama. Try not to get into examining the flea dung in rat scat. Keep your points short and concise because it’s easier for you to debunk their debunking. FWIW.
Riilism
@El Tiburon: Oh please, yourself. You’re the one being led around by the nose here, perfectly comfortable believing conclusions not based on evidence.
Which is it, hmmm? Too much evidence or
I think “processes” is an excellent euphemism for what Greenwald has written regarding Scahill’s reporting. Clearly, beyond any dispute (to borrow from Greenwald’s “processing” techniques) you accept Greenwald’s conclusions not because they are substantiated by what Scahill has written but because his conclusions fit your worldview. And then you have the gall to accuse others of the same shoddy thinking. “It is impossible to overstate” what a hypocrite you are (Greenwald, again with the assist).
Some more than others…
To inspire insufferable prigs such as yourself to defend his “processing” to your dying breath, of course….
gila
Greenwald’s been a consistent voice for protecting constitutional principles, and fighting back against the authoritarianism creeping into our political culture.
It no doubt hurts for some on the Left to be the target of similar criticisms that were formerly leveled against the Right.
Remember, if you would of criticized it under Bush, you should still be criticizing it under Obama.
WeeBey
Would of?
Yeah.
Morons.
Lawnguylander
@El Tiburon
El Tiburon
@Lawnguylander:
Oh fuck off you pansy ass.
El Tiburon
@Riilism:
I never said I accept anyone’s conclusions. I never said I agree or disagree with Greenwald. My fight here, as always, is with the braying GGHaters who care more about slagging him than providing any evidence of wrong-doing on Greenwald’s part.
But, I invite you or anyone else to show me where Greenwald was demonstrably wrong in his articles. I’ve requested this countless times over the years and have yet to receive any reply that actually shows him being demonstrably wrong.
LT
You have completely screwed the pooch on this.
Just for starters, it wasn’t the lack of coverage itself that GG noted, as Drum asserts, it was WHAT was reported.
And Drum writes: “Scahill is circumspect about going further, but Greenwald isn’t.” SCAHILL DISAGREES.
And Scahill has much more to say on this, most importantly and revealingly, that Drum doesn’t even mention the trial.
http://ggdrafts.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/jeremy-scahils-reply-to-kevin-drum.html
Lawnguylander
@El Tiburon
Being horrified that you’ve revealed yourself as at best a person with a disturbed attitude towards children makes me a “pansy ass”? Fuck you. That’s one of the creepiest things I’ve ever read. What the fuck kind of person imagines himself beating his child because that child took a crap in his car? You, that’s who.
Riilism
I wasn’t braying about GG. I was discussing this article in particular. As for demonstrating GG is wrong, how can anyone show you that his speculation is wrong absent evidence which neither I nor GG are privy to?
That was what Drum was referring to when he said Scahill was circumspect and GG was not. For crying out loud, GG’s first bullet point was:
Nothing in Scahill’s reporting supports that last statement as the undeniable truth. It may be true or it may be a great deal more complicated than that (as Drum suggests). Whether I am able to demonstrate that that statement is wrong when no one outside of the US and Yemini government knows what the truth is, is completely beside the point. I believe Drum’s (and Mistermix’s) point is that GG has extended the argument beyond what information is available to him and in a way that suggests the very worst possible conclusions regarding the administration’s actions.
The point I’d make is that, in this case, and IMO, Scahill’s reporting is far more important to the cause of bringing justice to this man’s plight than GG’s supreme confidence in this administration’s apparent malicious desire to torment this man because
Scahill asks the question “Why Is President Obama Keeping a Journalist in Prison in Yemen?”. I know GG’s “answer” to this question. I’d prefer to know the administration’s and think we need to keep asking until they give us one….
Lynn Sutherland
Yes, Scahill does substantiate what Greenwald has written. Thank you, El Tiburon–you seem exceptionally well-informed and level headed in dealing with the silliness that is posted here. It is discouraging when some people at Balloon Juice can seem just as crazy as Michelle Malkin and Ace of Spades. Can’t we all be interested in getting to the bottom of what is happening instead of launching into frothing tirades at those who disagree with some comments–actually, ill informed, frothing tirades.
Vincent
It’s interesting/utterly depressing to see how few people actually refute the substance of anything Greenwald says and instead resort to fact-free childish ad hominem attacks about his tone or where he lives. Everything that Greenwald attacks about Obama worship is so rampant in this thread it’s almost dizzying.
“We have an election to win” – It’s not a team sport you total clown
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Lynn Sutherland:
I tell you what. Instead, why don’t we poor gasoline on this epically stupid and offensive thread, and burn the motherfucker to a crisp. Then drive a wooden stake through it and bury it in a 50 foot deep grave. You and El Tiburon can say a few words, and that will be that. Till the next asinine Greenwald thread. Are ya with me, Doctor Wu?
Riilism
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): Thank Gawd! A voice of reason….
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Riilism:
Only way to be sure
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Is that your answer to every contrary thread getting out of control?
Posse Comitatus
Just Some Fuckhead
What is the consensus? Did we finally put this forever issue to rest?
Vincent
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The issue of the US continuing its descent into authoritarianism under the leadership of a progressive charlatan or the issue of whether or not you like Glenn Greenwald’s tone?
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Vincent:
you want rebuttal. Bend over with a looking glass.
FlipYrWhig
@Riilism: That whole passage is classic Greenwald. Watch as the case he’s talking about becomes similar to another case, which proves he’s right, and then that similarity becomes reinforcement of the fact that he’s just demonstrated that he’s right. This case is like this other one, making a pattern, and the pattern fits this other pattern, so this case must be just like the other one, proving the pattern. He does it all the time. I don’t think he’s being dishonest. I think he thinks this is what honesty looks like.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@FlipYrWhig:
Ironic, that, because I was thinking that the Shaye case might bear some similarities to that point in Greenwald’s defense of Matthew Hale, at least the point in that defense at which Hale’s mother asked Greenwald to pass along an encoded message to her son.
Kudos there to Greenwald for refusing to act as the conduit in that case, but if it hasn’t crossed his mind that Shaye might very well be acting as such a conduit, then Greenwald has a short memory.
SpenserHoover
Glenn Greenwald has treated Obama and W the same : he’s examined their policies objectively and reported on how and when they violate the Constitution. He is a constitutional law expert and consultant to both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. I voted for Obama and may again as he will more than likely be the lesser evil. As for all you Obama Yes Men sychophants — grow up! You’re fearless leader sold you out the day he started hiring Goldman Sachs flunkies and took one-payer healthcare off the table…long before he started assassinating American citizens and legalizing their indefinite military detention. I’m sure many of you would have made fine Nazis in the 1930s.
Corner Stone
Greenwald can’t read!
No, seriously. The guy just doesn’t know how to read things.
It’s the only possible explanation.
Because if I read through the Greenwald bashing here, then read the actual articles involved, and concluded that he could, in fact, read things…then a lot of motherfuckers would look pretty fucking stupid.
Including Drummy and mistermix.
Corner Stone
There’s not much more I enjoy than the plethora of people here coming out of the closet and braying loudly how they, “had no use for GG during the Bush administrations!!”
Yeah, sure you pathetic motherfuckers didn’t. You so clearly didn’t like GG when he called Bush out on the shit going down.
Give me a fucking break.
Joe Boehmouth
Glenn Greenwald firmly supports Citizens United. He also, by even the most charitable reading of his r0n p4u1 posts and tweets, has only limited concern for historically-persistent systems of racial and gender violence.
I’m 100% in favor of bringing back the distinction between Left and liberal. But if you think, fellow leftist, that Glenn Greenwald is anything other than King Liberal, you are mistaken.
A leftist would realize that this is a feature of capitalistbstate power, not the personal preference of some dude. Also, a leftist would not spend his time fluffing the terrible US constitution, but showing how it is part of the problem. Chrst, even Yglesias can do that. YGLESIAS!!!
mk3872
@Joe Boehmouth: Glennwald is a pure civil libertarian who has a hard-on for Ron Paul.
Anytime anyone disagrees with him, that person immediately gets slandered and labeled an “Obama apologist” or bowing down to the “great leader”.
That is classic Limbaugh-style tactics of someone with anger management issues.
mk3872
I find it funny that Glennwald considers Obama to be a murderous evil-doer because Obama does not believe in Glennwald-style civil liberties.
But he’s willing to forgive all of Ron Paul’s racist fantasies and desire to undo all foreign aid just because Ron Paul is a Glennwald-style libertarian.
mk3872
@Corner Stone: Chill, motherfucker. I think the problem here is that anyone who challenges Mr. Civil Liberties Glennwald gets immediately called nasty names and is bowing down to “the great leader” as he always prints.
That’s no way to debate someone.
And Glennwald is not always right. I, for one, have absolutely no problem with American soldiers or drones killing Bin Laden and Awlaki. None whatsoever.
Joe Bohemouth
@SpenserHoover:
He had Goldman types on staff and took one payer healthcare off the table well before the primaries even started. I don’t like it either, but let’s not pretend it was a betrayal. Not to mention, Greenwald may be “good” on some civil liberties issues, but he isn’t exactly the sworn enemy of corporate capital either.
This really isn’t a very useful statement.
Corner Stone
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Talk about rank speculation.
Corner Stone
@Riilism:
But they are stone refusing to give anyone anything. The USG is darkly hinting that Shaye may be a terrorist, but are refusing to provide any evidence of same.
They don’t have to reveal their sources and methods, but if you’re going to interfere in a pardon process that keeps someone in prison maybe there should be a substantiated reason.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Let me make sure I understand you. If I describe a pattern, and subsequent info doesn’t refute that pattern and continues to build the pattern, then I can’t use the pattern to describe anything?
Corner Stone
@mk3872:
This is based on what?
Craig D. Schlesinger
@Matthew: @Matthew: Here here! If any of you Ball Juicers actually have any remaining principles, aside from blindly supporting your political “tribe” whatever the cost, you will be voting for Gary Johnson in the general election. In the meantime, have fun defending that bloodthirsty war criminal of a president. That’s right, Obama is but a mirror image of George W. Bush… except Bush actually went to Congress before recklessly going to war and never assassinated American citizens without due process. Wow, leave it Balloon Juice to make me extoll the ‘virtues’ of George W. Bush. Hell is freezing over…