Glenn asks a question:
I know Goldberg read what I wrote because he responded to it. Nothing like what he said on NPR ever happened. It’s just a total figment of his imagination, a complete fabrication. Who does something like that? Does Jeffrey Goldberg — one of our nation’s most Serious Middle East “reporters” — ever tell the truth about anything?
I think we all know the answer to this one…
quaint irene
Ooh! ooh!
DougJ
Up your nose with a rubber hose.
licensed to kill time
It’s the Goldberg Prevarications.
cleek
@licensed to kill time:
well played
debbie
He’s just pissed Goldberg called him a humor columnist.
matoko_chan
nope…they don’t have to.
from ED Kain to Breitbart to Levin to Douthat to Palin to Goldberg the end justifies the means.
the conservatives are about to get an asswhupping from the demographic timer and they just realized they have culled all the Jeffersonian talent and virtue out of their party.
its all fair.
Goldberg is kinda different……his prime directive is Zionism.
he senses the end of Americas tenure as Israel’s bitch.
daveinboca
I guess the Glenn/Excitable Andy break-up has all sorts of collateral damage going on. Glenn isn’t ignorant, but he just knows too many things that just ain’t so… Sort of like Jeff, who really doesn’t lie on purpose……!
licensed to kill time
@cleek: double entendre :)
Yes, he does play them rather well, doesn’t he? I hear it takes practice, practice, practice.
Comrade Mary
Funny, I always pictured you as Gabe Kaplan, John.
El Cid
Too much is at stake in the Middle East to limit hawk and liberal hawk commentary to mere fact.
scav
@licensed to kill time: but is he up to the Gould standard?
The Operative
“I know Goldberg read what I wrote because he responded to it. Nothing like what he said on NPR ever happened. It’s just a total figment of his imagination, a complete fabrication. Who does something like that? Does Jeffrey Goldberg—one of our nation’s most Serious Middle East “reporters”—ever tell the truth about anything?”
Yes.
theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/the-rise-of-shrieking-bigot-pamela-geller/61704/
Notice how easy that was? I didn’t even have to go beyond the front page. This is kind of what happens when you rhetorically overstate an otherwise defensible case and pretend it’s somehow a profound question instead of a poorly worded cheap-shot.
Alternatively, his work on the ‘Ground Zero’ Imam has been decent, if similarly drenched in silly hyperbole like the “is placing his life in danger” line: theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/ground-zero-imam-i-am-a-jew-i-have-always-been-one/61761/
Can we go back to seeing posts about relevant topics or at the very least not focusing on the least interesting/least well argued parts of decent take-downs?
mr. whipple
@licensed to kill time:
FTW!
Paris
hubrigance
licensed to kill time
@scav: He does have various eccentricities …
MikeBoyScout
Truth is a concept which can be significantly over valued when we are talking about bombing and killing brown Muslim people.
Oh, did you hear that the president is a Muslim?
He’s also too brown.
Should we wait for Israel to bomb the president?
lucslawyer
Just another hack shill for the israeli lobby…..
Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army
@The Operative: Well gee, he’s ok on the community center issue, so who really cares if he’s lying to gin up support for another mid-east war? Perspective, people!
Also, Greenwald uses too many words and is often shrill, so what he says doesn’t matter. It’s a crying shame, the disrespect he shows for a serious journalist like Goldberg.
catclub
@licensed to kill time:
The Greenwald/Goldberg interaction is a two fart invention.
Crusty Dem
All I know is that well-known liberal Joe Klein will side with Goldberg over Greenwald every time, no matter what either one actually says (because Glenn is mean to him sometimes)..
The Operative
Perspective, indeed. Absolutes tend to accord themselves to easy factual rejection. Compromising a solid argument with a stupid question is senseless. Just as praising a rhetorical overstatement simply for catering to general displeasure is thoughtless. If he wanted to ask if he’s ever right about the things that are relevant to our policy debates, that would be considerably more arguable. But that’s not what he did. He simply wanted to partake in the pleasure of exaggeration and imply that Goldberg is Wrong All The Time. He isn’t.
Acknowledging that is simple intellectual honesty. Surely you’ll forgive me if my standards for good arguments tend to require something more rigorous than a question that’s disproved in two clicks.
Chris
Here’s another question: does it trouble anyone at The Atlantic that one of their main writers/bloggers has no qualms about lying to defend himself against a justified criticism, then lying about his initial lies? (I suppose there’s a *chance* Goldberg didn’t lie *intentionally* on NPR, that it was merely a convenient mis-remembering, but his subsequent words, lies, and general defensiveness have made that a harder and harder proposition to infer.)
Your establishment media at work, ladies and gentlemen.
licensed to kill time
@catclub:
A Jrube Goldberg Machine?
NobodySpecial
@Chris: No.
SATSQ.
Chris
And I’ll take the “under” in gambling on the over/under of how soon NPR has Goldberg back on, because NPR is not in the business of pointing out the lies and propaganda of the conservatives it has on.
Are there any consequences, ever, for these guys?
MikeJ
Goldberg has shown himself to be so dishonest that it’s a disadvantage to have him on the side of the angels in the todo over the community center.
Chris
@NobodySpecial, 24:
Yeah, no surprises here. I just think it’s funny to ask the questions, since they’re questions that anyone from an establishment media with any scruples or integrity would be embarrassed by. (preemptive answer: yeah, I know, that’s not the media we have.)
burnspbesq
@licensed to kill time:
Glenn Gouldwald makes distracting noises when he plays.
suzanne
Is it wrong that this is how I picture matoko_chan?
And this is Goldberg.
Ruckus
@The Operative:
99.9% of the time? 99.8%? Surly you can’t find more than 2 tenths of a percent when he’s right. No one else can.
So given where he works and applying the math used there, that rounds off to oh say, 100% pretty easily.
The Operative
Why do I have to find more than that? He asked if he was ever right about anything. The desired answer is “no”. The correct answer is “yes”. If you have issues with that, then disprove the content of the examples I gave. I find arguing that Pamela Geller as anything but racist/bigot slightly difficult, but you’re free to give it a good effort.
A person doesn’t have to be wrong all the time in order to be wrong enough to disqualify themselves as honest, professional, intelligent or engaging. I would hope that the argumentative security in arguing against such an easy target as Goldberg would acknowledge that. I’d like to be certain that my optimism isn’t misplaced.
licensed to kill time
@burnspbesq:
♪♫ just listen while he play-ay-ay-ays his green tambourine ♪♫
asiangrrlMN
OK, at first I thought you meant Glenn Beck, and then I was confused as to whether I would have to side with Glenn Beck or Jeffrey Goldberg. Then, I got clarity, and all was fine. And, I have to say, seeing GG’s updates cracks me up every time. It’s so freaking funny.
@suzanne: Is it wrong that I wish I looked like that?
Ruckus
@The Operative:
So you don’t agree with the politics, you’re just being pedantic?
And don’t understand the term “rounding error”
Roger Moore
@Chris:
Yes, there are terrible consequences if they fail to take the hard right wing line. Agreeing with the liberals is sure to draw swift and terrible punishment.
The Operative
How is it pedantic to answer a question correctly?
burnspbesq
@asiangrrlMN:
You mean you don’t look like that? Damn, my entire fantasy life shot to hell in a split second.
asiangrrlMN
@burnspbesq: Ha! I have more hair, more boobs, more stomach, more tats, and more years. Other than that, though, it’s spot on.
Amir_Khalid
@suzanne: All that picture is missing is a headscarf.
Erik Vanderhoff
Does anyone else find this whole thing fucking ridiculous? I mean, it really hinges on “oh no, Goldberg said two different things EIGHT FUCKING YEARS APART and dances around the fact that he’d have to admit he was wrong in 2002!” Well, yeah, he’s fucking human. He’s also a dillweed, but that doesn’t mean he’s committed some grave offense against human decency here.
For fuck’s sake, Greenwald needs to drink two fingers of whiskey and calm the hell down. And Goldberg needs someone to slap him on the back of the head every time he’s a douche nozzle, it’s true…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
What is this “truth” of which you speak?
ETA: I see MikeBoyScout got there first.
Next question: Why hasn’t the Invisible Hand of the Free Market provided us with some truth-tellers? Because every time Goldberg (and friends) loses a truth, the Truthiness Fairy comes in to his room at night and leaves a dollar under his pillow. Who wouldn’t want a deal like that? The Truthiness Fairy is a much better friend than the Invisible Hand of the Free Market.
Mark S.
@Erik Vanderhoff:
Thank you. My thoughts exactly.
El Tiburon
@The Operative:
Nice job (sarcastic clap).
You blew the lid completely off of Greenwald-Gate.
I think most sentient humans (other than Goldberg readers, Jeffrey or Jonah) recognize Greenwald’s assertion as what is commonly known as “sarcasm”.
But I”m sure you knew that, as you are the smartest commenter here ever in the whole wide world.
beltane
@Erik Vanderhoff: I agree with you. Both are assholes. Goldberg is a much bigger asshole with a much bigger audience, but I’m not exactly rooting for Team Greenwald either.
OT, but the headline on Comcast news is “Sarah Palin Twitter Backlash”, followed by “Mama Grizzly Declawed.” It looks like everyone is taking her free screech rights away from her.
some other guy
@The Operative:
I can only speak for myself, but treating what was pretty clearly intended a hyperbolic rhetorical question as, instead, a hard statement of fact to be debunked and then giving short speech on the importance of not overstating one’s case does indeed strike me as kind of pedantic, if not also a little disingenuous.
El Tiburon
@Erik Vanderhoff:
First off, talk about someone needing to calm the hell down. It just so happens the things he was talking about was, oh, you know, starting a stupid fucking war for no reason.
So yeah, maybe it is worth making note of this when Goldberg starts doing it again, if, you know, you are against starting stupid fucking wars for no reason.
GregB
Sarah Palin is on the fast track to Katherine Harris status.
burnspbesq
@some other guy:
Well, that’s exactly the point where Greenwald is concerned. The hyperbolic rhetorical question adds nothing to the argument and, in fact, becomes a distraction that dilutes the message. Dude needs an editor. And he’s the only person on earth who can’t see that.
licensed to kill time
@beltane:
Was there ever a more perfect communication device for such a Twit as Sarah!SparklePlentyPuerilePony? When I see her tweets, it just gives me such a tickle in my funnybone that I can barely see the screen. It is a match made in Heaven by some Trickster Angels of the Tweeterverse.
(free screech rights, FTW!)
(I said funnybone, you perverts!)
LittlePig
@The Operative: Pssst…answering rhetorical questions is a distinctive Asperger’s tell. Seek medical help immediately.
MikeBoyScout
There seems to be some confusion or even anger about a discussion about dishonesty between our Villager and Professional Liberal Blogger puppet masters.
Let’s see if I can clear this up.
If the subject of dishonest propaganda were avoided, and instead all that was discussed were the honest insightful articles, we would all be doomed to interminable silences.
Which, this being the month of crazy, brings me back to my very
crazyimportant series of questions, given that NY, NY is the largest Jewish city in the world.Oh, did you hear that the president is a Muslim?
He’s also too brown.
The president would allow a victory mosque to be built in the world’s most Jewish populated city.
Should we wait for Israel to bomb the president?
soonergrunt
@beltane: I do not understand how conservatives equate people calling them mean names with denying them the right to free speech?
I mean, nobody has prevented Sarah Palin from saying stupid dishonest shit. Nor has anybody prevented ‘Dr.’ Laura from saying racist, stupid, dishonest shit.
People have called them both stupid and dishonest and ‘Dr. Laura a racist, but nobody has actually prevented or attempted to prevent them from saying that stuff. You saw the same stuff with Carrie “Princess Jesus-Boobies” Prejean and that dipshit from The View. Well, OK, the two dipshits on The View, Star Jones and Elisabeth Hasselbeck
I guess for most of us, the first amendment guarantees our right to make asses of ourselves but for conservative women the first amendment also guarantees them the special right not get pointed out as having made asses of themselves.
The Operative
“I can only speak for myself, but treating what was pretty clearly intended a hyperbolic rhetorical question as, instead, a hard statement of fact to be debunked and then giving short speech on the importance of not overstating one’s case does indeed strike me as kind of pedantic, if not also a little disingenuous.”
Perhaps. I apologize if it appears so. As I said earlier, I think that was the least interesting and silliest non-point he could make precisely because it could be easily rejected, and it seems that most of the praise/commentary derived from the remark was because the answer is clearly “no”. I simply don’t see why a rhetorical overstatement is required to make Goldberg look any more dishonest than Greenwald’s post already had. It doesn’t undermine his argument in the least, but it’s no less childish than Goldberg’s inability to respond to dissent without name-calling.
Also, this is Greenwald. While it’s certainly possible that it’s intentional (instead of unintentional) hyperbole, it’s similarly possible that he thinks it’s a serious question. Since I have a less-than-high opinion of him at the moment, I’m assuming the latter and responding accordingly. I would also note that an ill-considered, functionally incorrect and hyperbolic remark from someone that questions similar statements from others is perfectly fair game.
NonyNony
@Chris:
Probably not. Have you seen some of the garbage that The Atlantic publishes on a regular basis? Either the quality control over at The Atlantic is lacking or its producing just the mix of credible opinion and batshit insanity that it’s publisher wants.
Svensker
@Erik Vanderhoff:
His grave offense was doing everything he could to propagandize the US into going to war against Iraq, including lying in a major national magazine. Now he seems to be doing it again. Some of us aren’t real thrilled with the idea of another war, so we’re making a lot of noise and pointing at the guy, saying “see, he’s doing it again!” Some people find that impolite and shrill. Me, I find bogus wars impolite and that makes me shrill.
Erik Vanderhoff
@El Tiburon:
I start three stupid fucking wars before breakfast every day.
Brachiator
There is a recent update to Chrome that addresses a number of big security issues, just in case you didn’t know about this previously.
And yeah, Goldberg is a tool.
Bullsmith
You know, I agree that Greenwald needs an editor, often badly. I even agree that his sarcastic overstatement of Goldberg’s honesty ratio hurts Greenwald’s argument more than it helps it….BUT
To respond to a question of criticism by just bald-faced lying that your critic has admitted their error and thus vindicated you is perhaps the most douche-bag tactic I have ever encountered. It’s breathtaking. And of course he knows he’s going to get caught, so his topper is even better. He assumed Greenwald must have retracted because any actual breathing thinking human being would have.
And as context we get ginning up a war that, should it happen, will pretty much put the notion of “America the benevolent” to permanent rest. So yeah, Glenn’s got problems. Goldberg on the other hand, is the problem. This little episode encapsulates so much of how the American media has become a parasite that corrupts information instead of providing it.
Anne Laurie
@beltane:
What you did there, I saw it. And LOLed.
Anne Laurie
@soonergrunt:
Do you have a daughter? These women all peaked back in the sixth grade — their entire careers are based on trying to recapture the giddy high of being Queen Bee of the Mean Girls pack. (The older generation of Mean Conservative Women, people like Peggy Noonan and Ann Coulter and Maureen Dowd, at least matured as far as ninth or maybe eleventh grade before freezing their psyches in amber.) Palin, Hasselhoff, etc. are the female equivalent of the male warpr0nners who’ve never been as happy as they were back when they were the first kids in their grade to grow pubic hair, which gave them “the right” to make life or at least gym class hell for their less physically advanced peers. They’re like the worst frustrated-jock phys ed teachers of your adolescent nightmares, except that Faux News gives them a national platform to air their grievances against the grown-up universe.
Anne Laurie
@NonyNony:
As I understand it, the current publisher (sigh) is a group of committed Glibertarian suits. They’re sure that the Atlantic’s long-term readership will really enjoy glibertarianism, just as soon as we get over our old-fashioned prejudices in favor of “facts” and “consistency” and “writing above a fourth-grade reading level”. It’s like they personally preferred cookies made with ratshit instead of raisins, so they hire people like McArdle (who eats her ratshit straight, with a big spoon, but the spoon has to be pure hallmarked sterling from this year’s most desirable table pattern) to bake ratshit cookies. And they keep pushing their “legacy” sane writers to mix just a little ratshit in with their raisins — or at the very least, not to complain in public about the smell of baked turds coming from the next oven over, where Goldberg has upped his level by importing wolverine shit for his latest batch…
Quaker in a Basement
Another blogger pissing match?
Oh good.
Lysana
I have nothing to add other than warm gratitude for the reference and photo.
Draylon Hogg
I don’t particularly care for Greenwald’s devotion to Ron Paul very much. And sometimes his writing style and the people he targets are a bit sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut-ish. I also wonder if Greenwald’s social conscience would ever have emerged if he wasn’t part of a discriminated against minority himself.
And Another Thing...
@El Tiburon: WORD. Thanx.
Dr. Squid
Arnold Horshack FTW.
Do you know what Horshack means? It means that the cattle are dyin’.