Adam Serwer on Jeffrey Goldberg’s anonymous WaPo sources:
I remember a time when there was nothing more vile than those nasty bloggers with their anonymous comment sections. Behind veils of anonymity, the cowardly hordes of the Internet would spew rivers of bile and the real journalists would clutch their pearls and lament the decline of public discourse. Now that the bloggers have moved into the newsroom, some of these “traditional” reporters have joined the cesspool of anonymous flaming they once used as examples of why blogging couldn’t be taken seriously as a journalistic medium.
How’s that for a bit of irony?
I’m still waiting for the Glenzilla to drink Goldberg’s milkshake for his preposterous “Won’t you think of the Kurds” bit yesterday.
jetan
Goldberg is punching Way out of his weight division in trying to mix it up with Greenwald.
On a less humorous note, my oldest dog appears to be dying. I hate this part.
WereBear
@jetan: I’m really sorry to hear. They are such a part of our life.
When they go, a chunk of shared history goes with them.
Bill E Pilgrim
Plus it shouldn’t even need to be pointed out that the person Goldberg was most pointedly defending in his first posts about Weigel was Matt Drudge.
The fact that they’ve managed to frame this as a battle between traditional honorable reporters against scary new media bloggers is one of the more astonishing acts of complete bullshit ever, and that’s in a bullshit-rich environment, let’s face it.
Not only does Drudge’s brand of blogger sleaze not bother them (because it’s on the correct side, of course), they think he needs to be defended.
geg6
@jetan:
I’m so sorry. My John and I are approaching that point in the very near future with Henry. I dread it.
@Bill E Pilgrim:
This. I can’t say it enough times. This.
Brien Jackson
@jetan:
Goldberg’s out of his weight class with Sully.
rickstersherpa
Goldberg uses the old rhetorical tactic that when one is losing the argument, change the subject. The arguement from Glennzilla is that someone with Goldberg’s track record should not hold himself out as some sort of judge of journalistic standards (Goldberg wrote a propagandistic piece that contained false information that Iraq had WMD and was in cahoots with Al Qaida and OBL which was the primary reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deaths of hundred of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans, two trillion dollars out the door, and an occupation now going on 8 years, and U.S. interests through out the world compromised). Goldberg responds by saying, well, Glenzilla does not care about the Kurds so don’t pay attention to him and I don’t need to respond to the argument! (Also he calls him “left wing,” another way of saying “not serious,” and I guess because Goldberg realized “anti-semite” was not particularly useful since Greenwald is Jewish).
El Cid
The fate of the Kurds (already protected under US-UK ‘no-fly zone’ autonomy before invasion) was also Hitchens’ fallback for why it was imperative we blow the Iraqi nation-state to cinders because of Saddam’s horrors.
rickstersherpa
@jetan: Very sorry to hear about your dog. I have now gone through it so many times with both dogs and cats. And I will do it again.
El Cid
What the fuck is with the frumpy face Barney Frank ad mocking homosexuals getting “special rights”? WTF?
Bill E Pilgrim
@El Cid: I’d love to propose a thought experiment to Goldberg and Hitchens:
Imagine it 2002 and George W Bush proposing this massive undertaking of invading Iraq “to save the Kurds”. How far do you think that would have gotten?
Aside from what one thinks of whether that’s a worthy cause, the country has a right to decide massive undertakings of lives and money like this based on the truth, not on a bunch of trumped-up nonsense that the leaders know is scarier and thus will sell better.
It’s astonishing that they’re even trying this tactic, it’s absurd.
homerhk
I don’t really mind the invitation Goldberg gave to Glenzilla – and I think Glenzilla should accept. Surely he can stand his ground speaking to the Kurds who supported the invasion! What really gets me about the war debate is how dishonest both sides are and were. From my point of view, I opposed the war, walked in the protests in London and thought that the US and UK governments went to war on the back of lies.
Having said that, I’m not so stupid that I can not (and couldn’t then) see the global value of toppling Saddam Hussain and also the possible value to Iraqis. No-one likes dictators that murder their own citizens, surely?
My main opposition to the war was that (a) it was founded on lies (partly, I guess, because the US couldn’t say that the real reason was regime change and (b) because inevitably the war would cause untold suffering to millions of people. However, I would hope never to be so closed minded so as to not listen to anyone who wants/wanted to argue the opposite side from a position of good faith. Goldberg may not be that person but I would imagine some of the Kurds might be.
Ash Can
I’d love to see Glenzilla light Goldberg’s sorry ass up. Dickishness should have consequences.
Tone in DC
@Ash Can: Oh AYUH.
BC
I still think the whole “Saddam gassed the Kurds! OMG, he’s the worst monster in history!” was way overblown simply because the gassing happened in 1989 and the Kurds had been protected since by the no-fly zone enforced by US. If the gassing had been such a bad thing, why didn’t we do something about it in 1991 after we destroyed Saddam’s military in the Gulf War?
fucen tarmal
@BC:
not to mention the fact we could be very close to gassing the kurds in the next few years as they choose to become more and more independent.
the irony of saddam gassing the kurds was that he was doing iran, syria, and our nato ally (despite the fact we are supposed to be mad at them i guess) , turkey, a favor.
Ash Can
@BC: It was worse than overblown, it was the use of a legitimate atrocity as an excuse for an incompetent putz of a president to work out his daddy issues. Just another of the many reasons to detest the disingenuous hacks of the GOP.
eemom
How did the poor Kurds get mixed up in this Weigel mess?
celticdragonchick
@jetan:
That.
As far as the ridiculous ZOMG WE FREED THE KURDS riposte from Goldberg, I will see his wager and raise him by several hundred thousand dead Iraqis, millions of displaced Iraqis, the utter and complete destruction of the Iraqi Orthodox and Catholic church communities, the imposition of Shariah law in many areas, ethnic cleansing, and the kidnapping/torture/murder of women who are caught outside without a hijab.
celticdragonchick
@eemom:
Goldberg thinks his experience as am Israeli prison guard makes him a “Middle east Expert”, and he was responding to Greenwald’s recitation of Goldberg’s hackery in the lead up to the second invasion of Iraq.
El Cid
@Bill E Pilgrim: Hitchens says he doesn’t care about how the public was sold to the war, though he would have preferred the public was advocated to the noble intentions the godlike liberal interventionists possessed, because like a good Leninist / Trotskyist, what matters is that his goals were achieved, and the wrong methods of getting there are unfortunate but pale in contrast to the good done.
So, good for the Kurds in Iraq, fuck the Kurds in Turkey, and to hell with the Iraqi civilians who already had suffered so much under Saddam but at least had a comparatively developed, industrializing state which maybe could one day pass from Saddam.
I guess the argument is that the good of saving the Kurds is worth blowing the Iraqi civilian population to shit, unleash a massive — and successful, despite the ‘SURGE’ asshole propaganda campaign — ethnic cleansing and terror war, and destroying Iraq as a functional, albeit tyrant dominated, nation-state.
Which, of course, is something that a lot of anti-Arab racists and anti-Muslim fanatics never wanted — a strongly developed Arab democratic state in the Middle East with huge oil supplies and a true commitment to national development over Western preferences.
El Tiburon
Goldberg’s response was one of the most juvenile I have seen in a long time. It was a step down from “I know you are but what am I?”
It reminds me of the “wager” Dough-yPants Load made to Juan Cole about who was right on the invasion of Iraq. Cole, of course, ignored the idiot on this. But then DPL would come back and say, “Yeah, but he wouldn’t take my wager so I don’t have to respond to anything or anyone on this topic.”
So this will be Goldberg’s tactic: “Hey, I made a serious offer to take Greenwald to Iraq and he refused, so who is the d-bag here?” as he stalks off with his ball on his way home.
Corner Stone
@homerhk: How does this:
Not completely negate this:
Joel
@homerhk: I’m sure someone else has said it, but if your opponents are building an argument on lies, how can they be arguing in good faith?
asiangrrlMN
@jetan: Sorry to hear this.
@geg6: Sorry to you, too.
@El Cid: Yeah. For some reason, I can’t ignore that particular add–probably because of the obnoxious pink font.
I gotta say, I still read TNC, but his defense of Goldberg has put me off my feed a bit. I don’t think TNC needed to destroy Goldberg, but I was still let down. I’m disheartened that asshats like Goldberg can spout that kind of crap (all his crap over the years) and still have a steady job. I know it’s pretty much true for all the conservative pundits, but I just want one of them to suffer a quarter of the retribution that many on the left have suffered. Is that really too much to ask?