Just had an interesting twitter debate with Glenzilla, arguing back and forth about the “Professional Left.”
Immediately, I got a bunch of emails telling me “good on for putting him in his place…” Look, folks- Glenn and I are friends. Full disclosure: we email multiple times a day. I’m not trying to put him in his place, I don’t dislike him, in fact, I consider him a good friend.
Whatever happened to debate and just being able to disagree?
*** Update ***
And yes. I am fully aware of my own (hourly) failings in this regard. I’m one of the worst of the worst offenders of what I just described. I know my weaknesses, folks- I live with them every day.
Nazgul35
STFU that’s why!
Chyron HR
I dunno, maybe Glenn should post another front page article on Balloon Juice denouncing the entire readership here as “O-Bots” who “mindlessly worship dear leader”. That would help bridge the gulf, I’m sure.
steviez314
Like Christine O’Donnell, I’m against mass debating.
Oh, never mind.
FlipYrWhig
I’m surprised that Glenn Greenwald is good at that one on one. Because in my experience of reading him, he doesn’t often appear to accept that there’s a difference between disagreeing with him and being a deluded, ignorant, or brainwashed person. I think he disagrees less amicably than just about any other new-media figure. It’s good to know that there’s another side to him.
Corner Stone
Have you tried looking in the mirror lately?
satby
Agree to disagree? With respect for the other guy?
What universe are you from?
arguingwithsignposts
Should we expect multiple updates to this post?
cleek
@FlipYrWhig:
dingdingding
John Cole
@FlipYrWhig: Have you ever read some of the posts around the blogosphere attacking him? A not insubstantial (read majority) of the time, he is dealing with “deluded, ignorant, and brainwashed” persons.
Allison W.
Disagree without being disagreeable? hmmmm…..who does that sound like? You Obot :)
And yes, what Chyron said.
John Cole
@Corner Stone: Go to hell. :p
Kryptik
John, have you been keeping track of the the political landscape at all?
Agree to Disagree simply means painting a ‘RUN ME OVER!’ target on your back these days.
Not that ‘Agree to Disagree’ is a bad thing in general. It’s that it’s political suicide these days. And that’s a depressing thing indeed.
Gareth
BAM! Way to slam the fans who emailed you. SMACKDOWN! BOOM!
arguingwithsignposts
Via Twitter:
Greenwald does his fair share of psychological mind-reading with his “substantive, civil disagreement” posts.
I don’t hate the man’s writing (master of the tl;dr), but he is the pot calling the kettle black.
BTD
@John Cole:
We’re not friends, but generally I think we have moved our discussions to the reasonably civil area.
It’s been better for sure. I’ll try and keep it up from my end.
Trinity
lol Cole….you resemble that remark!
Seriously though….DIAF.
;)
Jymn
I love me some John Cole – and some Glenzilla – but your commenters sound more like Republican rubes than progressives. Someone needs to let a little air out of their heads.
Joe Beese
What happened is that the awful things the Republicans were doing continued under the stewardship of Our Guy, Glenn had the intellectual integrity to point that out, and many who lacked this integrity got mad at Glenn for it.
sherifffruitfly
Frenemies forEVAH!!!!!
:P
Comrade Javamanphil
I believe the “Your either with us or against us” Bush years safely killed off whatever vestige of this quaint attitude existed after the Limbaugh/Gingrich 90s. Beck’s constant references to things “they” will and won’t make you do in the new world order is just the final beating and dismemberment of this particular horse.
BGinCHI
GG is a contrarian, and I love the species. They have many uses. But let’s face it: it wears you down. He was on Maddow last night and he had to disagree with every premise. Had to. It’s a form of argument that suits a certain type of person. I always get on with these kinds of folks, but fundamentally they are poor listeners and they tend not to be supple thinkers because they can’t incorporate other viewpoints into their thinking.
Brachiator
I think it was outlawed. Yeah, I’m pretty sure of it.
Interesting insight into a corner of the blogosphere. I don’t do twitter. I didn’t realize the degree to which it engenders side debates and emails. But I guess it’s a kind of public arena, so cheers and boos are not unexpected.
FlipYrWhig
@John Cole: OK, but IMHO he shows signs of an attitude — one I used to find among old-school help desk tech support people — that he is so used to dealing with idiots and their idiocy that just defaults to treating _everyone_ like an idiot wasting his time.
RSR
I enjoyed it, from the perspective of the give and take. Frank and honest discussion (and yes, debate) is better than cloistered, petty, behind the back preaching to the choir stuff.
mcd410x
One thing that has been lost in the movement to electronic debate is understatement. It’s a lost art form.
Whoever shouts the loudest shouts the best. It’s unfortunate.
New Yorker
I dunno, I’ve been able to keep the reasoned debate going for over a decade with a close friend who is a genuine center-right libertarian (i.e. despises the GOP, FOX, the religious right, etc.). I think it’s all about keeping in mind that disagreement doesn’t necessarily mean the other guy is evil and wants to destroy the country. In the era of cable news, it’s hard to remember that, sometimes.
Mark S.
After braving the bright lights and tough questioning of Sean Hannity, O’Donnell is done with national TV interviews. Also, I thought she only went on one date with the witch:
Um, weren’t the 80’s the Decade of St. Ronnie and The Morning of America? A gooper should never say they regret the 80’s.
BR
@BGinCHI:
This.
Edit: it’s also why I think of Maddow (or even Stewart) as 10x smarter and more insightful than Greenwald on his best day.
Lolis
This is a little too meta for me. This is what I have come to hate about liberal blogs.
wasabi gasp
Debate packed her bags and ran off with a black guy.
srv
@Chyron HR:
Yeah, way to forget the context. No problem the entire BJ gang insinuiating all sorts of stuff about his PAC funding with no facts (or asking him first). Followed with, “oh, we were all wrong, but Glenn sure hurt our fee-fees when we questioned his ethics.”
Zifnab
@Kryptik:
Well, in national politics it translates to “This is never going to see the floor of the Senate”. I will like to be able to agree to disagree, but there are only a few kinds of issues where you can agree to disagree and go on your merry way. At some point, you’ve got to agree on a political candidate or a policy decision. See: Collins / Snow and the “Agree to Disagree” on the defense budget.
someguy
See, that’s why I come here. Top comedy blog in teh innertubes.
FlipYrWhig
@arguingwithsignposts:
See, OK, maybe this is unfair, but even in there I feel him itching to say that it’s a tiresome problem that (all these stupid idiots wasting his time with their poorly thought-out O-bot nonsense) perceive substantive, civil disagreement as a personalized WWF brawl.
BGinCHI
@wasabi gasp: I think that’s the first line of a George Jones song.
El Tiburon
@Chyron HR:
Example #1,209 of the ignorance and stupidity Greenwald (and others) deal with on a daily basis. So Greenwald denounced the “entire readership” did he?
Greenwald links to BJ all the time and Cole just admitted they are good friends yet Greenwald thinks we are all a bunch “O-Bots”?
Allison W.
@Joe Beese:
yeah, right. I visit other bloggers that criticize Obama on the same topics yet for some reason they do not get any of the criticisms (rightly) aimed at Greenwald.
someguy
@New Yorker:
Okay, so favoring things that are evil which would destroy the country is okay, so long as he means well?
Tom Hilton
@FlipYrWhig: Exactly…with the added point that he actively distorts the positions of people with whom he argues.
Yesterday there was a perfect example of Greenwald’s dishonesty: attacking a TAP writer who had quoted Jonathan Chait, Greenwald describes it as “some TAP writers…pointing to TNR for how ‘liberals’ should think about thing[s]”–as if Jonathan Chait = Marty Peretz.
Greenwald is a lying sack of shit, and it astounds me that anyone takes him seriously anymore.
Punchy
John and Glenda
Sitting in a gmail account
t-y-p-i-n-g…
Allison W.
@El Tiburon:
yes he does.
Comrade Javamanphil
@FlipYrWhig: Hello, IT. Did you try turning it off and on again?
Jamie
Oooh, behaving like an adult? You’re never gonna make it on the inner tubes that way.
silentbeep
John: sometimes friends need to be told to stfu. You can still be friends and tell them they are full of it, when they need it.
:)
sherifffruitfly
And to brokenrecord it again: NOBODY thinks Obama/Dems are perfect (far, from it). NOBODY thinks clapping should be mindless. I’m pretty sure that people like Cole here would be more than happy to see the “professional left” clap when things are done right, *in addition to* booing when things are done wrong.
Instead, PUH-LENTY of folks – spread the notion that damn near everything Obama does is wrong. And that is just false. You know those folks by their un-self-critical use of terms like “lockstep”, “clap louder”, “cheerleader”, and so forth. “Professional protester” or something would be a more descriptive term for these folks.
We don’t get anything close to fairness from the right (duh). If we also don’t get anything close to fairness from the “professional left”, why in the world would we expect it from the general media? What forces exist to push the media to anything like truth?
“hippie punching” has devolved into a term similar to “anti-Semitic”, in the mouths of uberIsrael folks (i.e., “anyone who disagrees with anything Israel does”)
cleek
@El Tiburon:
i’ll just note that there are many differences between the BJ front-pagers, JC in particular, and the people who inhabit the comments.
BTD
@Tom Hilton:
Jonathan Chait has a context too. I suggest you review his writings on how the Left was awful during the Iraq Debacle.
Jon Chait of course is not Marty Peretz, but he has written some pretty awful things himself. Also some great things of course.
Mark S.
@El Tiburon:
He could think Cole is just peachy but the rest of us are a snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals.
Zifnab
@Lolis: Introspection is the cancer that is killing /b/!
Allison W.
@sherifffruitfly:
Puh-LENTY right you are. really.
El Tiburon
@Mark S.:
He could also think Obama is a secret Muslim terrorist with a small penis.
That’s not the point. The point is the commenter said Greenwald wrote that WE ALL WERE O-Bots. This is what the right does. Lie, exaggerate and misquote people to make their case. So this commenter doesn’t like Greenwald and he is willing to lie or otherwise to make a false case.
You don’t like Greenwald, fine. Stop making shit up.
Corner Stone
@sherifffruitfly:
There is one, and only one, BJ Approved Category for Dissent(tm)
And that is broadly defined as “civil liberties”. All the anger, fear, doubt, shame a lockstepped loud clapping cheerleader feels can be safely released through the safety valve of this approved category. Throw your shoes at it! It’s ok! Your heart is free now! Have the courage to follow it!
But FSM help you if you step off that tiny little dais.
Michael D.
@John Cole: This.
Mark S.
Are Glenn’s emails as long as his posts?
Gebghis
To disagree, without being disagreeable…
Best…H
The Dangerman
Whatever happened to debate and just being able to disagree?
I would ask whatever happened to the news and being able to be informed. Two examples from this morning:
So, I’m watching Fox News this AM (channel surfing, just passing by) and they were saying that their poll indicated that the Top 2 persons people were voting for replacing Larry Summers were Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. Does anyone with an IQ above single digits think Obama would nominate either of those people? Why would someone even ask that question with those alternatives in a poll?
Then, I’m about to keep surfing (quickly) when they started talking about the Death Tax; ok, I just had to stop for a few more seconds. Of course, the tax amounts were listed for 2009 and 2011 (have to skip this year, because it’s zero and that might reflect well on Obama) and implied the increase in 2011 was Obama’s fault. OK, so far, par for the course bullshit…
…then, the reporter said that the amount of money raised by the Estate tax was a “mere pittance” and an important revenue stream, implying the tax should be eliminated as it raises only about$25B annually and roughly equaled the amount of Congressional earmarks. Hold the fucking phone; I thought earmarks were more than a mere pittance?
With a major media outlet like Fox literally just making shit up for their Sheeple, there is no hope.
MBunge
@Joe Beese: What happened is that the awful things the Republicans were doing continued under the stewardship of Our Guy, Glenn had the intellectual integrity to point that out, and many who lacked this integrity got mad at Glenn for it.
What’s left out of that description is Glenn decided the only possible reason for it happening is that Obama is just as bad as Bush and is totally unwilling to even consider any alternative.
Mike
Tom Hilton
@BTD: Yes, Chait has written good things and bad things. So has Glenn Greenwald; I would suggest reading what he had to say about immigration back in 2005, for example, or (less appalling but more recent) his defense of Ron Paul in 2007. Nobody is right 100% of the time. The quote from Chait happened to be entirely reasonable–which, of course, is why instead of engaging the point Greenwald went for the smear.
The point remains that Greenwald habitually distorts the position of people with whom he argues. Maybe that’s not a problem for some; it is a problem for me.
Allan
I would never send you an email to put down GG when I can just respond directly to his Twitter feed myself. And that would be my suggested response from you to anyone emailing you with “attaboys.”
Culture of Truth
I like Glenn but he had a classic “heads I win tails you lose” bit of circular logic with Rachel last night, bemoaning the irony of Obama’s timidity being the cause of Russ Feingold’s drop in popularity, considering how bold and un-Obama like Russ is.
Oscar Leroy
LOL at someone on Balloon Juice writing this.
You win this thread.
cmorenc
John:
I sure am glad the reference to “Glenzilla” turns out to be Glenn Greenwald, not Glenn Beck. Even if the “professional left” turns out to sometimes be nearly as big a PITA as the crazy right. Well, ok not nearly as big as the crazy right, but annoyingly puritan about well, what’s sufficiently pure progressivism to not be selling folks down the river for a few pieces of corporate gold.
Corner Stone
@MBunge:
Can you suggest possible alternatives GG should take into consideration?
liberal
@Tom Hilton:
What’s the quote from Chait?
AxelFoley
@wasabi gasp:
And once you go black…
Hugin & Munin
Bloggers and readers aren’t any more immune to the lure of tribalism than anyone else, and might be less immune than some.
Go, team, go!
Billy K
I can’t believe this hasn’t been said yet:
“I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler.”
Oscar Leroy
@MBunge:
Okay, what’s the alternative?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Agreeing to disagree is boring and will never get people to the polls. Plus the internet allows people to argue without actually considering who is on the other side. There are so many xkcd comics on this issue that everyone should just go to the comic and find them.
Corner Stone
@AxelFoley: Actually, I came back. Not that I wouldn’t go there again. God please let me go there again.
But maybe I’m the exception that proves the going black rule?
Oscar Leroy
When people should be using the approved un-self-critical terms, like “firebagger” or “communist”.
Joe
Most Greenwald detractors criticize him for his delivery but not his content (reminds me of Olbermann in that regard).
Glenn frequently cites and directs readers to check out opinions that don’t necessarily jive with his own. Those citations usually carry the disclaimer “I don’t necessarily agree, but this is worth reading…” So he’s not the asshole many like to think he is. Not all the time, at least.
I think people confuse being principled with being a contrarian. Also, remember that Glenn is a lawyer, and they tend to fight over tiny details that many people don’t even realize (or want to acknowledge) have significance when talking about heavy social and political issues. Attorneys are trained to nitpick everything, especially the premise of a statement or a question, when that premise or other detail is inaccurate, improperly weighted, or weakens their own argument.
Appreciate Glenn for what he is: an attorney who honestly and sincerely defends very rigid principles of civil rights and liberalism. You don’t have to agree, but don’t discount him because you think he’s mean about it.
(I realize the length of this comment means half of the Juice’s readers have already given up)
Corner Stone
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I once stopped drinking for like 2 hours just so I could read through the xkcd archives.
That’s how impressively impressive they are.
lol
@srv:
What did they get wrong?
That he had previously claimed that he wasn’t being paid by Hamsher or by the PAC right up until it came out that he was?
That his PAC hasn’t done dick since it started? (Yes, yes, I’m aware Greenwald is claiming all the credit for Halter getting in the race.)
There are a lot of PACs that do nothing but fleece donors out of their money on the premise of “recruiting candidates and helping campaigns”.
Anyways, it’s funny how a PAC called Accountability Now is hostile to any kind of scrutiny or accountability.
lol
@Oscar Leroy:
Institutional change is hard and never as easy as activism-averse pundits make it sound.
slag
@BGinCHI:
Being something of a contrarian myself, I have to disagree with this somewhat. Contrarians have to incorporate other viewpoints into their thinking. It’s what a contrarian is. When you say “left”, contrarians say “right”. But when you say “right”, contrarians say “left”. In that respect, contrarians will argue both “right” and “left” at different times, depending on the circumstances. That is, by and large, incorporating other viewpoints into one’s thinking. Or at least being able to argue a premise from different sides, which is closely related.
Now, if you want to characterize contrarians as being unduly argumentative, I’m more than happy to get on board with that assessment (at this moment).
AxelFoley
@sherifffruitfly:
Sums it all up perfectly.
Corner Stone
@lol: God. Stop fucking lying.
GG was asked about being on Hamsher’s payroll and he said he didn’t get a penny from her. And to be more clear, he was slagged from the get go in the hopes it would stick.
Being a co-founder of a PAC that was not FDL, and which he disclosed at every opportunity on his main site, is not being on her payroll.
Assholes like you tried for over 100 comments to schmear shit all over everything just wanking off on the hopes that something would stick.
Read the fucking thread jackass. You’re lying about what happened. It’s not unusual for you.
edited a little
MBunge
@Corner Stone: Can you suggest possible alternatives GG should take into consideration?
How about the fact that doing a lot of what GG wants would require a years long death struggle in Congress and the federal courts, furthering the polarization of the country and consuming so much of his Presidency that Obama’s ability to do anything else is greatly reduced. There’s also possible concern over how doing those things might affect current military and intelligence operations that are trying to keep the country safe from further attack. Not to mention that there’s probably more than a few Democrats either implicated in Bush era wrongdoing or who would be exposed as grossly derelict in their Constitutional responsibilities. And there’s the whole thing about the American people not giving a shit about any of it, meaning there’s no practical benefit to Obama doing almost any of the things GG wants done.
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I could come up with more after a little thought.
Now, you or I or GG might not find those reasons persuasive, but that’s not the point.
Mike
Tom Hilton
@liberal: here it is: “If you’re a liberal and you think every Democratic president is a disappointment, then you need to recalibrate your expectations.”
Edit: and whether you agree with the quote or not, it’s certainly dishonest to try to associate it with Marty Peretz.
AxelFoley
@Oscar Leroy:
If you have to ask that…
Oscar Leroy
That’s it? That’s why Obama keeps locking up people indefinitely in secret prisons, wants the right to kill American citizens without any sort of trial, thinks he should be able to shroud in secrecy anything he doesn’t want to talk about, etc etc etc? “Change is hard”? “I want to stop bombing innocent people in Yemen, but it’s too hard to!”
Well shoot, good thing he didn’t campaign on change, or people might start to be disappointed.
Hugin & Munin
lol: Christ you are adumbass. Greenwald said, repaeatedly, that he hadn’t taken money from Hamsher or FDL. He never claimed to not have taken money from AN. That many Juicebaggers cannot differentiate between the three distinct legal entities is not the fault of Glenzilla. That many Juicebaggers get butthurt when called mean names is further not his responsibility, although the total lack of self-awareness is amusing.
Nick
Saw it and Twitter and you both had points. Glenn’s right that the economy is hurting Democrats, but you’re also right that we really need a “rally around the cause” effect now. The general feeling is “Republicans suck and there’s nothing Democrats can do to stop them, so ‘meh'” instead of what it needs to be, which is “Republicans suck and Democrats need our help to stop them”
The problem isn’t so much with Glenn as with others, like Arianna, who take whatever Democrats do and comb through it to find the most obscure thing or rumor, which has the effect
“Obama maybe possibly probably rumored to sell out on the public option!” makes people less likely to fight for it. “Senate Democrats may force Obama to drop public option” doesn’t. Remember the Elizabeth Warren nonsense? Huffington Post blaring front page of a hearsay rumor that Geithner hated her, when both said it wasn’t true, people still believed it.
What the professional left (not so much Glenn) is doing is saying “They’re going to sell out,” so activists don’t bother fighting. It’s heresy to claim that, maybe, most Democrats actually WANT to do good. There’s a level of mistrust in government on the left, which is ironic since we’re the ones trying to sell the country on government regulation and govenrment-led healthcare and stimulus measures.
I was shocked to hear that he didn’t know anyone blamed Obama for DADT failing yesterday. I didn’t think he did, but I assumed he knew some did. Glenn is not ignorant to the issues with the media, he often calls them out, something I get mocked for here.
Oscar Leroy
@AxelFoley:
Wow, what a good answer.
John Bird
I’m glad you’re acknowledging your weaknesses, but one way to improve your blog would be for all your writers to cut down on the posts that are one- or two-sentence summaries of what you assume other Democrats and liberals are going to have to say about a topic.
That’s a polite way of putting it. What I’m really saying is that you guys need to cut out the progressive-strawman shit, because it makes you look petty and argumentative.
BTD
@Tom Hilton:
I am not familiar with the particular exchange you are referring to. But, if I may, you objected to Glenn treating Chait “as if he were Marty Peretz.” FTR, Peretz has written good things too.
Outside of the context and without knwing exactly what the debate was about, I can’t judge Glenn’s reference to TNR there.
My point is more along the lines of Chait isn’t the innocent you portray in terms of TNR. In many respects, he is part of the problem.
Of course, you can be a fan of TNR and disagree with my assessment that TNR is a problem.
Socratic_me
I was listening to NPR this morning and they were implied that the conventional wisdom in the White House is that they should replace Summers with someone from the business community because they are perceived as insufficiently
deferential toconcerned with the welfare of big businesses.Watch me rally round that flag and learn to get excited about voting Dem. I am closing that enthusiasm gap all on my own now that I realize how awesome a Democratic administration is!
Oscar Leroy
@MBunge:
Oh yes, it would take years and years to, say, not argue that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying. That would just take sooo long.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/obama-doj-worse-than-bush
My god, I would hate to think what it would be like if the country became polarized.
This falls into the category of “if Obama can say that, why couldn’t Bush?” For instance, if Obama could say he was holding people in secret prisons without trial to protect the country, why couldn’t Bush?
It’s okay for you to rag on Democrats, but not for me? Okay, got it. Again, if Bush did things to shield his party from accountability it’s wrong, but it’s okay for Obama to do so?
You believe people should only do the right thing if the majority favors it, eh?
What a bunch of total bullshit.
sparky
@Oscar Leroy: if i didn’t know better, i’d think you had a problem with the imaginary status quo.
remember, comrade, that the notion of change is itself a revisionist quagmire. onward into the pragmatic future!
@Oscar Leroy: because something could happen, that’s why! ask Mistah Cheney, who coined this *idea*. after all, the one pragmatic ideal that must never ever be questioned is the american right to be free from everything. except fear.
Oscar Leroy
That’s possible. Another possibility is that Obama’s own chief of staff called activists “f**king retarded” for fighting for what they want, which dampened enthusiasm for fighting. I wonder which is more likely?
You Don't Say
@BGinCHI:I don’t read much Greenwald so don’t know if he falls into the category, what little I’ve read is always hyperbolic, which is a real turn off for me.
But I agree about contrarians. Like Christopher Hitchens. Or Slate as a rule. They do a service half the time, but they get tiresome because they end up taking on silly stuff and looking silly in their quest to always be on the opposite side of conventional wisdom.
You Don't Say
@steviez314: I enjoyed that.
BGinCHI
@You Don’t Say:
Yes. Majorities of one. See also Matthews, Chris.
Oscar Leroy
Obama Administration quietly expands Bush’s legal defense of wiretapping program
Sigh. But what can he do? It would be so much trouble and take too long to NOT expand Bush’s warrant-less wiretapping program. And who knows? Fellow Democrats might be caught up in the parts of the program that didn’t exist until Obama expanded them, so he couldn’t not expand them.
But really, Americans don’t mind if someone listens in on their private conversations without a warrant.
Also, even though no one cares if the government spies on them, if Obama were to reign in that spying it would tear the country apart!
eemom
Tom Hilton and lol, you are right on the facts and right on the conclusion. Just ignore the name-calling bedbugs.
That said, even I am getting tired of Greenwald as a conversation piece. Frankly he’s just not worth all this controversy.
John B.
Do you contradict yourself? Very well, you contradict yourself.
You are large. You contain multitudes.
MBunge
@Oscar Leroy: Thanks for sort of proving the point. Your response was one legitimate argument and a bunch of bullshit that simply disregarded perfectly legitimate concerns without actually addressing them or even thinking about them seriously. That pretty much sums up GG on the subject of Obama – a few decent contentions and then a whole lotta bullshit.
Mike
Oscar Leroy
@sparky:
Keep fear alive!
http://www.keepfearalive.com/
MBunge
@Oscar Leroy: It would be so much trouble and take too long to NOT expand Bush’s warrant-less wiretapping program.
He’s not expanding the program. He’s expanding the legal argument protecting such actions by the previous administration. That’s not a semantic difference…unless you’ve got any evidence that warrantless wiretaps are continuing under the Obama administration?
Mike
Hugin & Munin
Shall we all join together for a rousing rendition of the Juicebagger anthem “Nothing can be done!”
What? Too late? Shucks!
slag
@Nick:
Distrust of the government on the left is not ironic. It’s perfectly natural. Just like our distrust of corporations, religions, and any other organized entity. The big difference is that we feel like we, by the founders’ intelligent design, have more say over what our government does than we have over what corporations or religions do. So, we say it. It’s our job as citizens to do so.
And as big of a Greenwald fan as I am (I’m a big fan of anyone who I think has worked to give liberals a voice in this country–even if I sometimes disagree with them), he does do his fair share of impugning motives. Which is fine if you’re trying to demonize people, but less good if you’re trying to convince people. There’s a case to be made for both efforts, but personally, I don’t think demonizing Obama (as hugely disappointing on civil liberties as he has been) is helpful to liberalism. I find it disheartening, myself.
(I have no qualms with demonizing Teabaggers at this point in time, however, because there’s no convincing them. Better that they be ostracized from all good society, if at all possible.)
Oscar Leroy
@MBunge:
Which of your concerns was legitimate? That unless we held people without trial, our national security would be weakened? If people disagreed with Bush about that, why shouldn’t they disagree with Obama?
That it would take too long? What are you talking about? Half the problem is Obama extending Bush programs. The least he could do is not do that. Not doing something takes no time at all.
How can you say that people don’t care about these issues, yet if Obama addressed them it would tear the country apart? That is a self-contradiction.
So what if a few Democrats are implicated in wrongdoing? I don’t care. The law is the law. Or I guess you supported Bush commuting Lewis Libbey’s sentence. After all, he was just looking out for a member of his own party.
Oscar Leroy
@MBunge:
LOL. How am I supposed to know a damn thing about the program when it’s kept shrouded in secrecy?
Corner Stone
@MBunge:
Holy shit! I just pulled a fucking rib muscle from laughing so hard at this.
Damn man.
Corner Stone
“I’m not saying I am for you stealing cars, but I am for expanding the legal argument for your right to steal cars.”
FlipYrWhig
@BGinCHI: I don’t think Glenn Greenwald is a “contrarian.” He’s more consistent than that. That’s his best feature. His worst feature, IMHO, is his style of conducting an argument, which _very quickly_ goes into impugning his interlocutor’s motives. He’s adversarial rather than discursive or deliberative; he doesn’t act as though the person he’s talking to might offer up something (either a matter of fact or a matter of interpretation) that he hasn’t already considered and dismissed. If he’s not like that in less-public forums, I’m glad to hear it.
Corner Stone
“Upholding laws is hard y’all! And nobody likes ’em in the first place!”
MBunge
@Oscar Leroy: Which of your concerns was legitimate?
Uh…all of them?
Mike
Oscar Leroy
Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me
* * *
In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJ’s New Arguments Are Worse Than Bush’s
Remember: the enthusiasm gap is because of criticism of Obama, not anything Obama has done.
MBunge
@Corner Stone: So, you think defense lawyers are just as guilty as the people they represent? That’s an interesting and somewhat Klingon-ish take on the subject.
Mike
You Don't Say
@BGinCHI: I know I’m going to be ridiculed, but I like Matthews. Half the time. ;-)
Oscar Leroy
@MBunge:
“Uh…all of them?”
Well we know for certain that at least one of them isn’t, since you contradicted yourself.
MBunge
@Oscar Leroy: And again, defending the previous adminstration’s behavior is not the same as doing it yourself.
Mike
Oscar Leroy
@FlipYrWhig:
Can you think of any examples?
fucen tarmal
good job putting those mailers in their place for saying you were putting glennda in his place.
General Stuck
LOL, John Cole’s friend thinks Barrack Obama is worse than Bush and writes breathless polemics on a regular basis pointed in that direction, whereupon his minions show up here declaring his scratchings as enlightened research, but it is Greenwald who has to deal with deranged, ignorant people on the internet. And anyone questioning that is a Obama cultist
That’s ok, but as an Obot, I will continue to call bullshit bullshit when Greenwald’s pops up here, just like with any firebagger bent on electing republicans.
MBunge
@Oscar Leroy: Where did I contradict myself? When I said the American people don’t give a shit about this? They don’t, in the sense that there is clearly no demand from the public at-large to see any of the Bush era wrongdoing investigated or punished. It’s also true that if Obama did try and do what GG wants, the former Bushies, the GOP and the conservative movement would raise holy hell about it.
The American people didn’t give a crap about Bill Clinton getting a blow job from an intern and I think we all recall how that turned out.
Mike
slag
@Oscar Leroy: You do realize you’re trolling a thread that asks whatever happened to debate, right? Will there ever be a point at which you stop and question your raison d’etre? Ever?
Arclite
@slag:
So critics should just not point out Obama’s failings? Or are you talking specifically about tone? Obama has continued or expanded some of the worst excesses started under Bush. Why shouldn’t he be smashed over the head with that?
Corner Stone
@slag: Will you?
BGinCHI
@You Don’t Say:
Goddamnit. OK….
We’ll always have Tweety to thank for making Michele Bachmann look like a batshit loon right before the 2008 election.
JPL(formerly demo woman)
@Oscar Leroy: JFC.. change the subject.. If you don’t know what the program entails why print that Obama is expanding it and spying on more folks.
Talk about honest discussions.
Corner Stone
@MBunge: God. Stealing cars is illegal. Do you really want to continue your analogy?
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: Every piece that suggests that the reason why people are taking exception to his analysis is because they can’t face the facts because they are enraptured with cult-like devotion for their Dear Leader. Thus, people who have different interpretations than he does must be motivated by illusions and puffery, whereas he is only ever the voice of truth and clarity.
I haven’t been keeping up with the Greenwald Express lately, but there was a time when that was at least half his output at Salon, and then he came over here and did the same thing.
slag
@Arclite: Actually, I’m talking specifically about the thing I mentioned specifically:
Impugning motives. It goes beyond saying that doing x, y, or z is wrong, wrong, wrong and goes into…impugning motives. When you do that, you don’t have any room to maneuver someone over to your side, which is why it should always be a last-resort kind of argument.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: So…you can’t provide any examples then. Thanks.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy: And you are a perfect example of GG’s dubious works, first conflating Bush’s warrantless wiretapping and Obama as worse than Bush because of how he has handled lawsuits brought against Bush.
And as a cherry on top, are ignorant of the final disposition of the lawsuit you bring as evidence, because it was settled via a granted summary judgment for the plaintiff, because the Obama administration chose not to defend it on the merits. Or, iow’s the Obama DOJ threw the case in plaintiffs favor, but retained the possible legitimate use of the SS privilege
EFroh
For some reason I read this as Glenn Reynolds. Nearly had a heart attack. (Not saying we should hate Glenn Reynolds, it’s just I don’t think talking to him is worth your valuable time – he’ll never change his mind about anything.)
Glenn Greenwald gets an eternal pass for any personality quirks from me due to his reporting on torture.
slag
@Corner Stone: Actually, I have questioned it and decided that my raison d’etre today is to make you say something stupid.
My work here is done.
Corner Stone
@slag: Actually, you made me “ask” something stupid.
We all already knew you were incapable of doing what you demanded of others.
Silly me.
General Stuck
This seems to be the ruling notion that since GG was so good on detailing Bush’s torture regime and other lawlessness, then Greenwald gets a pass on all his Obama is just as bad bullshit.
Mary
@srv: We weren’t wrong about Greenwald’s PAC. I was there for that debate. The PAC thing was a minor point having to do with Greenwald’s financial connections to Jane Hamsher and Greenwald handled the thing properly after we brought it up. As one would expect of him–he has more integrity than most.
And, speaking of integrity, it would be nice if people didn’t try to rewrite history on this matter.
In any event, Greenwald is an outstanding commentator and we would be a lot poorer without his voice. Unlike his friend, drama queen Jane, for example.
stormhit
@Tom Hilton:
Chait has called out Greenwald for lying and making crap up in the past. So you can assume that any TNR digs that are Chait related are just personal attacks because he’s sore about getting put on the spot.
Nick
@slag:
We can’t convince a country so imbedded with anti-government attitudes that single payer healthcare, higher taxes, and regulations are worth supporting if we keep telling people government is inept and incompetent. While that may be true, it is not because of the (few) progressives in government. Russ Feingold isn’t incompetent, neither is Bernie Sanders or Al Franken or Alan Grayson or Barbara Boxer.
Our message should be “Conservatives are MAKING our government incompetent.”
eemom
At least two important distinctions should be noted in what has been said above:
1. John Cole possesses both a sense of humor and the capacity to admit he might be wrong. Those concepts don’t exist in the Greenwaldian universe.
2. Hitchens may be an asshole, but he’s a very good writer. Greenwald, not so much.
Carry on.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: You can’t seriously deny that Glenn Greenwald has been known to say that the reason why people disagree with him is that they love Obama too much and too uncritically to see the truth. That’s what “Dear Leader” means: brainwashing. I don’t think even Glenn Greenwald himself would attempt to say that. He did it _on this blog_. You were there. Are you just being obtuse because you’re bored this afternon?
MBunge
@Corner Stone: Since you’re willfully misreading the analogy, try this one.
Sometimes firefighters will let a fire burn itself out because they decide trying to extinguish it is too costly or too dangerous. In those situations, they would also try to physically prevent anyone else from attempting to put out the fire.
Under the Greenwaldian “logic” being offered up here, those firefighters would be just as guilty as the arsonist who started the blaze in the first place.
Mike
Nick
@Oscar Leroy:
Since the enthusiasm gap predates “fuckingretardedgate,” I’m going to go with my theory.
He didn’t call them “fucking retarded” for fighting for what they want, he called them “fucking retarded” for counterproductive strategies. For example, you don’t run a progressive in Arkansas who A.) isn’t really a progressive and B.) has no chance of winning, you let Lincoln sink or swim on her own and elect one in New Hampshire while building a progressive base in Arkansas. You don’t box in a Democrat in Mississippi, you’re never going to win there, you box in a Republican in Maine.
JPL(formerly demo woman)
John Cole, Is Jane Hamsher you BFF also? The problem with some left sites is not that they point out the Presidents faults, it’s that they don’t balance it with success stories. The American auto company is in business today because of the President and the government has an opportunity of making money off the deal. Forgive me if I missed the hallelujah posts about this.
Glenndacious Greenwaldian (formerly tim)
Oh geez, I really hate it when bloggers/reporters/whomever start communicating with each other behind the scenes and calling each other “friends.”
To any rational/objective observer, this now means that all references from you and Glenn to and about each other and your web sites have to be taken with a grain of salt. There is no way you are “friends” and also as objective as possible when evaluating each others’ positions.
I don’t get why you media types, and you ARE a media type now John, can’t do your schmoozing or arguing THRU YOUR WEB SITES and stop kissing each other’s asses.
And why have you, apparently, waited a while to disclose this new friendship?
Clearly I may have to change my BJ screen name…
,,,if course, Glenn, like me, is gay, so perhaps this is part of John’s coming out process.
Nick
@Oscar Leroy:
I’m going to say this once…THRONGS OF LIBERALS AREN’T STAYING HOME BECAUSE OF WARRANTLESS WIRETAPS!
slag
@Corner Stone: You’re a person who won’t even accept being agreed with from time to time. I, on the other hand, am perfectly willing to accept being agreed with. You are, indeed, “silly”.
Allison W.
@Socratic_me:
you’re reacting to pure fucking speculation.
EFroh
@General Stuck: Yeah, sorry, he does. Torture is that important.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: I was just hoping you would call me a “scum sucking fool”.
Feeling a little left out.
Plus, I’m distracted by Tamron Hall. Good God she is awesome.
Corner Stone
@slag: I think you’ve lost all sense of perspective.
I emphatically agreed with you when you told Mnemosyne to “fuck off” multiple times.
Nick
@Socratic_me:
I heard the same thing and that’s not what was said. What was said was conventional wisdom was that the White House WOULD HAVE to appoint a business-friendly replacement because they’re seen as anti-business, not that they wanted to.
You, like most Huffington Post Outrage Liberals, heard what you wanted to hear
General Stuck
@EFroh: So because Bush did torture, and GG reported on it, then that excuses Greenwald’s firebagging the current dem president who dismantled Bush’s torture program, and now with the only eyewitness accounts that the Obama administration is following the Army Field Manual for interrogation, and that okays GG equating or calling Obama worse than Bush. Maybe for you that works, not for me.
Paula
@srv:
Well, I was a semi-regular lurker here and GG was using “pro-Obama website” as a qualifier/dismissal of various blogs since 2008, long before BJ linked to the study, which was either late last year or earlier this year.
slag
@Corner Stone: Christ. Here:
Now you can proceed to argue that these are, in fact, the Democratic establishment’s motives, and we can all give up the far more relevant argument over whether it’s useful to argue over the Democratic establishment’s motives. Will that make you happy now? No. It won’t.
There, I’ve done your job for you. Your work here is done.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t think the “enthusiasm gap” is because of criticism of Obama. I just think the people who diagnose the “enthusiasm gap” as a symptom of Obama’s insufficient liberalism are totally wrong, and that they should stop pretending that the reasons why _they_ are unenthusiastic — including warrantless wiretapping, no public option, and such — are the reasons why people-who-voted-for-Democrats-last-time are unenthusiastic. Some of those people, and I’d bet in terms of sheer numbers many more than the disenchanted left, are unenthusiastic because they think Obama has been _too_ liberal. You might think, too bad, fuck them; and I feel that way too. But if the task is to figure out why there’s an “enthusiasm gap,” there are many more explanations that would account for more of it than “20% of the population is liberals, and 15% of those are annoyed about X and Y, ergo Obama should totally address X and Y.”
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: “Citizen Alan” totally deserved that.
slag
@Corner Stone: That was then. I’m not going to feign an argument with someone who’s clearly being intellectually dishonest. That’s not trolling. That’s the opposite of trolling.
Corner Stone
@slag: What are you even babbling about anymore?
That doesn’t “quickly” impugn the motives of someone GG is polemicizing against. It’s a statement of fact. Or opinion depending on your personal bent.
I said I agreed with you when you told Mnemosyne to fuck off. What more do you want from me?
ETA – Now who is being someone who can’t accept being agreed with?
Nick
@FlipYrWhig:
The enthusiasm gap has existed since Obama’s election. It came about as a result of exhausted Democrats just trying to get their lives back after three grueling years of campaigns. It’s why Democrats lost a bunch of state legislative seats in Dec 2008 and Jan 2009 and that UpstateDem dude on DailyKos was having daily conniptions. It’s why we stood a huge risk of losing a House special election in NY20 until Republicans threw it and Dems got their GOTV into gear, and why Judy Chu and John Garamendi underperformed in their races.The enthusiasm gap is WHY legislation turned out to be less progressive not vice versa, and this is not the fault of the professional left, it’s the fault of the Democrats we got out in 2006 and 2008 who just want to be left the fuck alone and need to learn voting and politics wasn’t just as a 2008 fad. A friend of mine hit the streets in June 2009 trying to get support for a public option and no one gave a shit…two months before the possibility of it dying even surfaced. No one gave a shit when it was still a possibility.
The problem now is Independents are gone also.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: If you don’t like the term “insufficient liberalism,” how about the idea that Obama ran (and was elected) promising big, sweeping change, and he hasn’t delivered, or in many cases even tried to deliver?
Because that is a big part of what’s behind the enthusiasm gap.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
John, I like you and all your front pagers, and even most of the regular commenters. But there is a core group of them that are tribalistic to the point of pathology and I suspect these are the ones who e-mail you this stuff.
Tom Hilton
@stormhit: Good point. Looks like Greenwald got quite a few savage spankings from Chait; this one nicely illustrates Greenwald’s modus operandi (and features the great deadpan line: “I would maintain that calling a politician a “dangerous sociopath” is inconsistent with worshiping him”), and this one highlight’s Greenwald’s inability or unwillingness to admit error.
EFroh
@General Stuck: My understanding is that GG is not making a blanket claim that Obama is worse than Bush across the board or that it would be better to have a Republican in office than a Democrat. (If he has, please link those posts.) He’s saying that in some areas (e.g. sovereign immunity claims) the Obama Administration has made more extreme demands/justifications for increased executive authority than the Bush Administration. I don’t disagree with Greenwald’s analysis here (and I really wish I could).
Note, this doesn’t mean I will not vote a straight Democratic ticket in November. But I’m not going to praise the Administration for its failures when it comes to reining in the Bush Security State. I’m not sorry if that offends you.
Tom Hilton
@NR: Unless you Rip Van Winkled through the last 20 months, how on earth can you possibly say we haven’t gotten “big sweeping change”? HCR, FinReg, the largest infrastructure investment in decades, etc.–these aren’t big enough or sweeping enough or change-y enough for you? Seriously?
FlipYrWhig
@NR: OK, I won’t even quibble with the phrasing of that point… So let’s say that’s correct. How do you fix that? The real, true reason why more big sweeping changes haven’t happened is that the Republicans broke the legislative process and Democrats have this rogue element that makes everything worse. No one wants to hear that because it’s not very inspiring, but it’s true. If you can’t fix that, and you can’t complain about it (you’ll be a whiner if you do), and you can’t fight about it (you’ll lose the fight and still get dinged for not fighting the right way), then there will always be an “enthusiasm gap,” just structurally.
Bob Loblaw
@Tom Hilton:
Your second link goes to Jonathan Bernstein. You’re a regular model of diligence and attention to detail…
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Digby has a great post where she points out the other huge factor in the enthusiasm gap. It’s not just Clinton Derangement Syndrome that’s back as Obama Derangement Syndrome — the Republicans have re-introduced the same tactics that brought us Clinton Fatigue as well. And they seem to be working just as well for the Repugs as they did in the Clinton years.
Nick
@NR:
Another Words, he has failed the meet the unreachable expectations we place upon any Democrat in order to help them win an election.
Tom Hilton
@Bob Loblaw: If I were Glenn Greenwald, I would deny any error and impugn your motives (“apparently liberals are supposed to let Bluth family associates define our reality” or some such).
;-)
But yes, I did make a mistake: that was Bernstein rather than Chait. Thank you for the correction.
Bob Loblaw
@Tom Hilton:
Eh, we all know TNR writers are one and the same. Peretz fluffers, the lot of them.
Midnight Marauder
@Arclite:
Goddamnit, it’s not about the fact that he can be legitimately critized on civil liberties; he deserves that criticism and he frequently says as much. The issue is the absurd number of people on the Left who are willing to overlook his efforts to entirely rebuild the United States into a thriving, functional 21st century nation and proclaim him The Worst Ever because hasn’t moved on the completely unprecedented step of prosecuting a previous administration for war crimes.
That’s it. Criticize him all you want to, just keep some kind of perspective about things.
General Stuck
@EFroh:
The EFF case you link about was the one I mentioned above that the Obama DOJ refused to defend on the merits when EFF moved for a summary judgment, even when coaxed by Judge Walker to do so. Therefore, by default threw the case to the plaintiff, EFF.
Emptywheel
So the Obama DOJ only asserted the SS privilege should stay in tact, and has not appealed the ruling. Does that sound worse than Bush to you?, and why would such a claim by GG even merit such a comparison when the actual illegal wiretapping was done by Bush, and not Obama, who was left with dealing with these legacy lawsuits. And there is no, none, nada evidence that Obama has been conducting survielance outside the current FISA law. It is insane to equate Obama with Bush in this way, and that goes for torture as well.
Bush was Bush because he was a lawless asshole. When you or GG, or any other firebagger brings evidence that Obama is torturing people as defined by US law, or is wiretapping without a warrant, then get back to us. Meanwhile “Obama worse than Bush” is bullshit, and I will continue to call it that.
Socratic_me
“You, like most Huffington Post Outrage Liberals, heard what you wanted to hear ”
This, in the middle of a thread about how GG regularly impugns the motives of those he disagrees with, is classic. Every once in a while I delurk and am quickly reminded of why I stopped being a regular commenter around here over a year ago.
lol
@Hugin & Munin:
Except that he specifically said he wasn’t being paid by Accountability Now. He also later (here at BJ IIRC) said he wasn’t taking money from any groups *connected* to FDL or Hamsher either.
But we’ll just ignore all of that and get to the fact that no one can explain what the PAC actually does aside from funnel money to Hamsher, Greenwald, Tribbett and a couple others. Pretty amazing that a PAC with the stated purpose of helping progressive Dems has managed to neither give money to progressive Dems nor incur any inkind contributions (which must be reported) to progressive Dems.
Furthermore, Hamsher hasn’t mentioned AN since June and the PAC’s website has gone AWOL.
General Stuck
And to follow up on my last comment. I fully agree with Greenwald and anyone else who asserts the SS privilege as created by case law decades ago, is rotten to the core in it’s current structure, that appears to be an all or nothing affair that precludes parsing out evidence of it’s misuse to cover up criminal activity by a president. I suspect Obama does to, and pure speculation on my part, is the reason he is continuing to assert the privilege in old Bush lawsuits, like the recent 9th circuit decision on rendition, is to play it out to let the SCOTUS make the decision and set some test parameters for it’s use.
There is also a pending bill in the Senate, at least, to codify and constrain the SS use to prevent it’s misuse. I’ve called my senators at least once urging that it be pushed to the forefront of consideration for action. I would fault Obama for not pushing hard enough as well, to remedy once and for all this get out of jail free card for the government when they decide to go off the country of laws and not men reservation.
BombIranForChrist
I like Anthony Bourdain’s quote: I don’t have to agree with someone to like them.
Draylon Hogg
“I have this feeling man, ’cause you know, it’s just a handful of people who run everything, you know … that’s true, it’s provable. It’s not … I’m not a fucking conspiracy nut, it’s provable. A handful, a very small elite, run and own these corporations, which include the mainstream media. I have this feeling that whoever’s elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what you promise on the campaign trail – blah, blah, blah – when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there. And you’re in this smokey room, and this little film screen comes down … and a big guy with a cigar goes, “Roll the film.” And it’s a shot of the Kennedy assasination from an angle you’ve never seen before … that looks suspiciously like it’s from the grassy knoll. And then the screen goes up and the lights come up, and they go to the new president, “Any questions?” “Er, just what my agenda is.” “First we bomb Baghdad.” “You got it …”
Bill Hicks
EFroh
@General Stuck:
Um, but DOJ is fighting the ruling in Al Haramain. From Emptywheel’s blog again:
They aren’t giving up in the manner you imply above.
Also, I don’t know how I qualify as a Firebagger given that I intend to vote straight D across the board in Nov 2010, 2012, and down the road (as I’ve done ever since I first was eligible to vote in the early 90s). When the elected officials I’ve helped to vote into office take positions I don’t agree with, I’m going to call them on it and criticize them for it. I acknowledge that the Dems are the better of two evils, but they will never improve and live up to the ideals they say they believe in and represent if they’re not called to account for their policies/politics that betray these ideals.
Corner Stone
@lol:
You better bring another link because the one you put here does not say anything about what you are claiming.
And GG also didn’t say what you claim. Stop lying.
Corner Stone
@lol:
Sure you will, you lying fucking douchebag.
Bring something that can be verified.
General Stuck
@EFroh: No, they are not appealing the decision and summary judgment despite Marcy’s breathless reporting that firebags all sorts of bullshit not backed up by her quotation . They conceded the judgment like I said, and like the government always does, puts up a fight to limit damages as best they can . All the DOJ is doing is putting up a obligatory fight to protect the SS privilege’s existence and the judge will decide on punitive damages that he has already granted judgment for, without appeal when it mattered. I see it as the Obama DOJ trying to immunize itself against RW attacks of playing politics with court cases, which is exactly what would happen if they didn’t do this rope a dope. You can see it any way you want, and I didn’t call you a firebagger, Greenwald was right before I added “Any other firebagger’.
And this post was in May this year, and the case to my knowledge has not been appealed to any higher court, just bitching by the government about potential damages.
And the main part of my argument you didn’t and can’t refute, of GG, ET AL, repeatedly claiming Obama is bad as Bush, or worse in the national security, civil liberties department, and neither you nor he can point to any evidence that he is, and dispensing with lawsuits about Bush’s lawbreaking is not the same thing as perpetrating these crimes. You folks keep making these false comparisons to Bush, and I will continue to speak out against it.
I am not telling you or anyone else they shouldn’t criticize Obama, and the way he has handled some of these lawsuits is fair game, SO LONG AS THE CRITICISM IS FAIR AND PROPORTIONAL TO THE PARTICULAR ISSUE AT HAND.
Where did I tell you to shut up, or not speak your mind?
Socratic_me
Umm, I don’t even think Obama is worse than Bush on civil liberties across the board. However, I certainly think that arguing that the U.S. government has the right to assassinate an American citizen without due process is worse than Bush did. So on that specific issue, I think that Obama is actually quantifiably worse. Then again, this is the sort of qualified complaint GG makes all the time that you seem to be characterizing as a broad-brush “Obama is worse than W in all things!”, so my hopes aren’t high that you will appreciate the distinction here either.
General Stuck
@Socratic_me: Taking up positions on a foreign battlefield with your country’s enemies, whilst sending out videos calling for the murder of your fellow citizens in large numbers would not be assassination in my book. Nobody gets to do that, American citizen or not.
General Stuck
@Socratic_me:
You must live in a cave. “Qualified complaint” by Greenwald concerning Obama. That’s good for a belly laugh.
Hugin & Munin
@Corner Stone: Yeppers. Exactly.
Efroh
@Socratic_me: Yes, I agree with you re the assassination decree and it being a very good example of a “worse than Bush” policy by the current Administration. It heartens me that there were several in the progressive blogging community who expressed their disagreement with the Administration’s action and I’m extremely happy the ACLU is suing the Gov’t. about this.
General Stuck
@Efroh:
If you really believe that Obama is assassinating American citizens illegally, then that is likely worse than Bush, I would agree. Though I don’t agree the circumstances with Mr. Alwaki make his being killed illegal, no more than German Americans that chose to join Hitler in ww2 being killed by us on a foreign battlefield.
If I felt like you did on this case, and that goes for Cole, or anyone else, I would not even think about voting for Obama again, but would be actively working for his impeachment, arrest and trial.
Socratic_me
@General Stuck:
All of Afghanistan or even Iraq, is not one giant battlefield. Yemen most certainly is not either. Unless you have evidence of specific combat that he was involved in, this part of your arguments is spurious at best.
Calling for the murder of fellow citizens is not punishable by death. General claims of how many Americans deserve to be slaughtered is likely not even illegal. Last I knew of, Ann Coulter was still running free, and I know she has called for me and fellow citizens like me to be killed off on more than one occasion.
That said, I am glad that you have come to accept that perhaps GG might actually have some factual basis for some of his claims that, in particular instances, Obama has indeed been worse than Bush, even though you might not accept his conclusion full stop.
Efroh
@General Stuck:
I can only say I’m glad to know that you at least acknowledge that there are some policy areas where it’s ok for people to disagree so strongly with decisions the President and his party have made that they decide to not vote for or financially support him or his party.
I’m just glad that Greenwald is blogging about and criticizing the President in areas where it’s necessary. May he continue undaunted for many years to come.
NR
@Tom Hilton: None of those things were big, sweeping changes. Take HCR – Obama went out of his way to embrace and include the insurance industry, and exclude single-payer advocates, from every step of the process, which gave us a law that actually solidifies the grip that the insurance companies have on our health care system. That’s not change – that’s business as usual in Washington.
Nick
@NR:
this lie will never die, will it?
Corner Stone
@Nick: What lie you chump? SP was off the table from the get go. Shoot, from the pre get go. That’s the definition of “exclude”.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck:
“Circumstances”
General Stuck
@Socratic_me: @Efroh:
Can’t you read, I said no such thing.
Nope, when it comes to Obama, GG is a lying sack of shit, and I agree with nothing that has to do with his and his wanker cultists claims of Obama being worse than Bush.
And let’s cut the bull. You and eFro have accused President Obama of planning an extrajudicial assassination of an American citizen, which is clearly planning a pre meditated murder. I don’t agree with this one iota, but you treat it as though it’s ho hum, I just disagree with Obama on this issue, or something like that. And you are preaching to me about principles and rule of law, while at the same time planning to vote again for Obama. This is a principled purist civil liberties stand?
I think not, and might I say wreaks of self absorbtion and hypocrisy and the kind of phony moralizing that is found with ideologues and holier than thou types.
This guy is making no secret of what he belongs to and what he plans to do about it. I don’t give a shit if he was born in a barrel of apple pie and sang Yankee Doodle dandy every day of his life. He needs to be stopped before he kills some more. That said, it seems Obama is going to get the indictment to satisfy the purists, now which one of you brave bloggering civil libertarians volunteers to go over to Yemen and arrest him from his tribe of AQ buddies?
junebug
The last word on Glenn Greenwald for me was how he not only embraced a person who trashed progressives on his blog (old blogspot one and his at Salon) Mona Holland, but asked her to research one (or more?) of his books.
He joined in with glibertarians and uses all of the tactics of Libertarians to bluster about what Obama is doing wrong — in his opinion.
He doesn’t live here full time and he isn’t really a progressive — he has been strongly influenced by Mona — who sees all progressives as racist and all Democrats as not letting pro-lifers into the party.
And for some of you — like me — I’m offended that someone who as an adult only found his political voice — so late. Glenn lacks political historical beliefs of his own. Just ask him about Reagan. Just ask him about Carter. Even his beliefs about Clinton are retroactive. He only became politically aware under Bush’s SECOND term.
junebug
Oh, and John, being friends with GG? I don’t think you know him so well.
It would be helpful for you to read his blog and comments from the beginning, but you can’t. They are all gone.
Had you been a progressive in the time of Mona (Hypatia) comments, you might have slit your throat.
But those times are long gone and Mona was a charity case before the recession.
Why didn’t GG help her more?
Mona could have used some of that PAC money.
lol
@Corner Stone:
I didn’t realize you were illiterate as well.
“It’s so much fun to work 18 hours a day on a political project for no compensation that I’m just doing it for my own amusement”
Filings, of course, show he was being paid at the time.
Corner Stone
@lol: Are you really that fucking stupid? Or just an unmitigated lying POS douchebag?
Are you fucking serious with this shit?
Corner Stone
@lol: “Yeah – you exposed me. It’s so much fun to work 18 hours a day on a political project for no compensation that I’m just doing it for my own amusement, just to raise lots of money with no intent to spend it on things that can matter, because . . . well, there must be some reason I’m doing that.”
Good sweet Christ. What a fucking useless lying asshole you are.
You can’t actually read this whole quote?
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
You’re the one who can’t read: he’s clearly saying he’s not getting paid.
xian
Does anybody remember laughter?
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: You’ve stumped me. I can no longer tell if you are serious or not.
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
Here, I’ll help you out cause I know it’s kind of confusing. Glenn’s being sarcastic in parts of the sentence and not being sarcastic in other parts. So let’s go over it:
this is what he is actually doing
of course he’s not working for free just for his own amusement (he’s being sarcastic)
again, he’s being sarcastic: of course he’s not working 18 hour days for free just to raise money for no reason
sarcastic again. There must be some reason I’m working 18 hour days for no compensation, and it sure as hell isn’t to raise money with no intent of spending on things that matter.
The sentence doesn’t make any sense if you assume he’s getting paid. Then there would be a reason he’s working those 18 hour days–because he’s getting paid.
socratic_me
@General Stuck:
You have no idea who I am or who I plan to vote for. As is typical, you make a lot of presumptions about my motives and my future behavior. If I don’t behave in the exact way you demand, namely to suck it up and vote for Obama, I am a cry-baby manic progressive. If I do vote for Obama in spite of my convictions that he is behaving unlawfully and in a way that ought to get him impeached, I have no principles.
As usual, your mind reading skills suck and your odd double standards mark you as genuinely uninterested in discourse. I am pretty sure that the last time we had this conversation, you decided you were done with BJ. If only you had held to your convictions, we would likely all be better off. Lord knows I could go without seeing you lose your damned mind every time someone says something good about GG.
Martin Gifford
John Cole vs Glenn Greenwald =
Panic-stricken advocate of “Vote Dem or else the GOP will make things even worse”
vs
Uncompromising righteously angry advocate for improvement in American politics?
It’s Fear vs Desire? The choice is yours America.
Martin Gifford
@BGinCHI:
I watched it. He was eloquent, insightful and on message. He’s a positive and consistent advocate for principles that would be seen as centrist in most sane democracies of the world.
What other viewpoints do you suggest he incorporate? America has gone over the cliff. Not much room for nuance about it. But even still, I find him nuanced most of the time.
Martin Gifford
@MBunge:
…because Obama gave it the stamp of bipartisanship, hid the photos, didn’t make a case, etc.
Oh, we can’t have that! If mom complains about dad’s violence, then dad will complain. Best sweep it all under the rug.
If you don’t fight, you lose.
General Stuck
@socratic_me: LOL
Well, you could always go back to lurking and hoping something gives with BJ and all those crazy Obots vanish into the vapors so a good firebagger can firebag in peace.
Apnea
Tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone.
Manners, manners, manners, manners, manners, manners, manners, manners, manners, manners, manners.
Attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude.
As always, style before substance, eh?
Except for some very enlightening comments about how good ol’ Obama is in fact powerless or unwilling for all sorts of good reasons to do what he was actually elected to do, and we should somehow cheer for it, most of you have nothing but specious, un-self-aware, sheep-like meta-concerns about the tone or manners or attitude of left-wing critics of this administration.
Balloon Juice — Where political debates come to stagnate and rot away into miscellaneous concern-trolling bullshit.
junebug
@Apnea: Clearly a GG FTL type. You broadcast that.
Answer one thing: why was someone who helped GG on one of his books hung out to dry — left to begging on the internet for money?
That’s what “friends” are on the internet and this incestuous thing we call blogs.
Perhaps you don’t know that the commenting section on this blog communicates with each other outside of the comments here. You are only privy to a small part of the conversation.
Things are not what you think they are. Not here, not on twitter, not anywhere.
lol
@Corner Stone:
Here’s another fun quote from Glenn, right here at Balloon Juice:
Someone asks:
How about a full disclosure of your financial relationship with FDL and its sources of funding, Mr. Greenwald?
Greenwald responds:
Sure – zero. I’ve never received a penny from Jane Hamsher, FDL or any of FDL’s “sources of funding”.
I have no idea what this little innuendo is about. I do recall from the Bush years how critics of the Leader would endure all sorts of nasty discrediting campaigns from the Leader’s most slavish followers, so it’s very unsurprising to see the same behavior repeating itself here.
But neither Jane Hamsher nor FDL provide me with a single cent and never have. The very suggestion is stupid.
He doesn’t receive a single cent from FDL or Jane Hamsher, he just receives tens of thousands of dollars from a PAC funded by FDL that Jane Hamsher runs.
Tuxedo Slack
@FlipYrWhig:
(I’m amazed nobody seems to’ve already replied with this or anything like it.) So, you’re saying he’s the Bastard Commentator from Hell?