This is both irritating and sad at the same time:
Now aside from the predictable, but nevertheless rather shocking detail, that these security firms believed the best way to take WikiLeaks out was to push Glenn to stop supporting them, what the fuck are they thinking by claiming that Glenn weighs “professional preservation” against “cause”? Could they be more wrong, painting Glenn as a squeamish careerist whose loud support for WikiLeaks (which dates back far longer than these security firms seem to understand) is secondary to “professional preservation”? Do they know Glenn is a journalist? Do they know he left the stuffy world of law? Have they thought about why he might have done that? Are they familiar at all with who Glenn is? Do they really believe Glenn became a household name–to the extent that he did–just in December?
I hope Bank of America did buy the work of these firms. Aside from the knowledge that the money would be–to the extent that we keep bailing out Bank of America–taxpayer money, I’d be thrilled to think of BoA pissing away its money like that. The plan these firms are pushing is absolutely ignorant rubbish. They apparently know almost nothing about what they’re pitching, and have no ability to do very basic research.
Knowing Glenn, I bet what angers him the most is the quality of his enemies. Really? The road to riches is advocating for someone the majority of the country thinks is a traitor? How stupid do you have to be to believe this shit? That has to be a let-down to know that you are up against a clown car full of wingnut internet sleuths who can’t even figure out the basics about you. It’s like learning that you thought your arch-rival was Ernst Blofeld but it is actually Andy Dick.
But really, this is what BoA is spending their bailout money on? Seriously?
cathyx
Spending taxpayer bailout money on.
Just Some Fuckhead
Damn, it puts the near constant attacks on GG here in a new perspective.
russell
BOA taking on Anonymous on the field of tech hacking is like Anonymous taking on BOA on the field of high level international finance. They have no fucking idea what they are doing.
That, plus the fact that BOA has much, much, much more to lose than either Greenwald or the Anonymous hackers puts them at an unbelievable disadvantage.
People get money and they think they suddenly know WTF they are doing in any and every area of life. What a bunch of idiots.
Mark S.
Hey, it’s the only stimulus we’re going to get for the next two years, so quit bitching.
cathyx
That law firm that hired the hackers was recommended by the DOJ.
Elvis Elvisberg
Being correct on the substance is just not an option for these guys, or relevant, I guess.
Calouste
I like that there is this “security” firm which get hacked and has 44,000 emails pulled within 24 hours of them targeting some hackers. Way to prove your competence folks.
BGinCHI
I suggest we amend C.R.E.A.M. to C.W.E.A.M.
Cash Wrecks Everything Around Me
General Stuck
More like a Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 meets Lex Luther and Otis in a blogospheric spy opera.
Michael Bersin
Win!
But, then again, I can’t believe we keep losing to these guys.
DougJ®
Greenwald is very shrill though.
Dennis SGMM
OT: watching “Reagan” on HBO. Frankenstein has nothing on him.
General Stuck
@DougJ®:
So was Ernst Blofeld
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Just Some Fuckhead:
“Damn, it puts the near constant attacks on GG here in a new perspective. ”
Well, those attacks are only for truly unforgivable sins, like questioning the goodness of Barack Obama.
The Republic of Stupidity
I love the first paragraph of the article:
A Homer Simpson moment, if ever there was one…
Delia
Maybe BoA should hire G. Gordon Liddy. He hasn’t had anything interesting to do for quite a long time. They might have to teach him how the internets work, though.
Omnes Omnibus
This is just fucking stupid. I would try to say why it is stupid, but even trying to understand the thought process behind these lines of “attack” makes my head hurt.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Delia:
It’s this series of tubes, see?
General Stuck
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Oh looky, a new firebagger troll, that happened to sober up the same day as Corner Stone and Fuckhead. The peace is broken, oh well.
J. Michael Neal
I dislike Glenn Greenwald a lot, and think that he is habitually dishonest. However, he’s also really fucking smart, which means these clowns are badly outmatched, and I’ll actually be rooting for Glenn.
What bugs me is that morons like this make good money and I’m unemployed.
Southern Beale
Whoopsies!
Another Republican Congressman resigns after a sex scandal …
geg6
Dennis SGGM@12:
I have been studiously avoiding that film on my OnDemand menu just because my loathing of him has only strengthened over time, much as I feel about Nixon. But I loathe Reagan more. But I read today that the wingnuts hate the film because Ron, Jr. was too involved in it. And I like Ron, so I thought I might see if I could suffer through it because he sees his dad as clearly as a son who loved him can. What do you think?
Delia
@russell:
Well, their rulebook says that the one with the most cash is the best in EVERYTHING, so why shouldn’t they know it all?
Mako
Now aside from the predictable, but nevertheless rather shocking detail, that these security firms believed the best way to take WikiLeaks out was to push Glenn to stop supporting them, what the fuck are they thinking by claiming that Glenn weighs “professional preservation” against “cause”?
Am i the only one who wished kids today would write readable sentences?
Elvis Elvisberg
@The Republic of Stupidity: Yeah, that story was pretty crazy. Here’s a good run-down of what happened when HBGary decided to attack the Internet. (SPOILER: It didn’t go well).
Just Some Fuckhead
@geg6:
I caught the last half of it and it was mildy critical of Reagan. Ron had very little good to say about him. Col. Bacevich sounded vaguely adulatory but at the end he basically said Reagan was selling “nonsense”, and (ETA) Carter was right.
Allan
@Just Some Fuckhead: It’s nice to know that even if Glenn sticks with his usual contemptuous sneer of “Obama cultist” toward anyone who finds fault with his work, the slavish Glennbots will immediately accuse us of being on the BofA payroll. Good work, asshole.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Elvis Elvisberg:
Plays like an episode of “Jackass, the Online Version”…
“I’ll tell you what, son… you take this pointy stick and go over there and start jamming it into that hornets’ nest over and over again…”
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: How is that? Is your theory that anyone who does attacks, distrusts, or dislikes Greenwald is a shill for BoA?
I am not a Greenwald fan, but I think that launching some kind of attack on him is 1) assholish, 2) pointless, and 3) counterproductive. I think the guy really does believe in his causes and he fights for them. In addition, his reaction when he perceives anything as an attack is to counterattack with the fury of a thousand demons. Threatening Greenwald would accomplish no result that BoA might want.
Ahasuerus
@J. Michael Neal:
What evidence do you have that he is habitually dishonest?
Master of Karate and Friendship
@General Stuck:
You forgot “I don’t care what you think”.
@Allan:
“even if Glenn sticks with his usual contemptuous sneer of “Obama cultist” toward anyone who finds fault with his work, the slavish Glennbots. . . ”
Maybe irony *is* dead.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course not. But previously, I just dismissed those that bring him up here on a regular basis apropos of nothing to disparage him as cranks and obsessives. It never occurred to me it could be organized and systematic.
Barrett Brown
Civil war begins. Should have begun years ago. Tell your friends at the League they need to stop circlejerking and choose sides. And that Alabama government official who called for death of Julian Assnage? He’s going to be outed.
Gus diZerega
BofA, like any public corporation that’s around long enough, is a moral sociopath, incapable of decent behavior except when forced or when it is profitable. For quite some time neither has been the case. As for the sociopaths they hired, since they are incapable of principled action, it should come as no surprise that they cannot understand anyone who is.
What is particularly worrisome is that when these kinds of people dominate both parties, the moral level of leading people in government will be essentially nonexistent. And here we finally find true bipartisanship, in a race to the bottom.
eemom
all’s I know is, somebody better set up a Greenwald Defense Fund asap. Or he might end up in solitary or something.
srv
@Just Some Fuckhead: The question is, who paid DougJ for his attacks on Glenn’s PAC? How far up the BJ food chain does this go?
J. Michael Neal
@Ahasuerus:
I’ve posted it many times before, and have no interest in digging it up again. Search through the archives if you really care.
Mark S.
@Elvis Elvisberg:
Ha! They hacked into HBGary guy’s twitter.
Mako
Seriously, he whole post is confusing.
Knowing Glenn, I bet what angers him the most is the quality of his enemies. Really? The road to riches is advocating for someone the majority of the country thinks is a traitor?
What are we talking about here? I’m more than willing to get all worked up about it but seriously, you guys are going all dogwhistle.
gwangung
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Well, since you’re standing over the body, with a bloody knife…
Dennis SGMM
@geg6:
To me, it seems a very even handed look at Reagan. His subsequent hagiography by the GOP has as little to do with the reality of his presidency than “Bedtime for Bonzo” had to do with his real life. He was an anomaly. Nothing more, nothing less.
jheartney
It’s pretty easy to imagine how this went down. The bank dudes, after hearing that Assange is on their tail, decided to hire a consultant. The consultants they hired are like most consultants: useless on a practical level, but they can speak the lingo and give good PowerPoint.
The bit about Greenwald et al being ready to whore themselves for money is pure projection, but in fairness to the consultants, it’s what they were hired to say. If they’d come back to the bank dudes with “You all are screwed and there’s nothing you can do to stop this kind of thing” then they wouldn’t be getting many more consulting gigs.
IOW, the consultants weren’t hired to tell the truth, they were hired to tell a pleasant (to the bank’s point of view) story. And that’s what’s in this report.
Malron
Glenn “anybody who disagrees with me is a Nazi” Greenwald is a household name? How small does the author of this article’s universe have to be in order to believe something that stupid? And how many of the readers saw that and actually agreed with it?
General Stuck
@Ahasuerus:
Maybe you should check out one of his recent screes how Obama was responsible for the recent heart attack death of a Gitmo detainee. It’s a real page turner, and all on Obama worse than Bush. And none on congress blocking any change in Gitmo status.
And I have noticed page hits down on BJ the past week or so, nothing a couple of GG threads won’t cure.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@J. Michael Neal:
“J. Michael Neal Glenn Greenwald” turns up nothing. “J. Michael Neal Greenwald” turns up nothing.
That was fun.
eemom
@Malron:
yeah, that.
This is probably the most exciting thing to happen to Greenwald since Joan Walsh.
Jamie
Well. they managed to pick on someone with more stick to it ism than rest of the populace. Glenn may end up taking them down.
Maude
@geg6:
Put down the remote.
I wouldn’t want to watch it because no matter how much sugar coating there is, Reagan is still the same rotten old devil.
gwangung
@Jamie:
I’d offer the use of a rusty farm instrument, but that’s like hauling coals to Newcastle…
gnomedad
@Delia:
Hmm, Liddy. Wonder if he spends his spare time waterboarding himself these days.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@General Stuck:
Yup, there’s no money to close Guantanamo. Barack Obama, commander-in-chief of the nation that spends more on the military than the rest of the planet Earth combined, has no money to close one military prison camp and move the inmates. So it can’t be done. Sorry, folks.
Good point, IF he actually wrote that, which he didn’t.
eemom
I just clicked on the link and saw what the source of this was.
yep — run for yer LIVES, BoA — not only Greenwald but Marcy “let’s play LAWYER!” Wheeler iz on yer asses. You guys are TOAST.
DougJ®
@eemom:
Aren’t you a lawyer?
Delia
@jheartney:
This has the ring of truth about it. The whole thing’s really pretty hilarious and needs to be preserved as a comic opera or something. Malron is also correct about the size of the universe in which Glenn Greenwald is a household name. I don’t dislike him the way some of you do. But let’s be realistic. And it’s not just the author of the article. The BoA people and the consultants apparently decided that he and Salon posed some sort of a serious threat. What is going on with these people?
General Stuck
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
No it can’t when congress says not a nickel of tax payer money shall be used to do it. I guess Obama could pony up his own cash, but that would wreck his daughters Christmas.
And of course, when Obama suggested in a signing statement on the Defense Bill that contained the taboo for bringing to trial and otherwise to the states, Bush’s detainees, that he would defy congress and do it anyway. Well, he can’t do that, is what we heard, that would be worse than Bush.
Now are you going for the brass ring of dumbest BJ commenter of all time, or are you just teasing us?
DougJ®
@srv:
And notice that Michael Kay disappeared right as this story was breaking. Coinky dinky?
Elvis Elvisberg
@The Republic of Stupidity: Yeah, I was embarrassingly entertained by those links & that thread. This explanation of how they got the password… oh man.
eemom
@DougJ®:
yes, I am. Marcy Wheeler is not, which would likely come as a shock to 98% of the morons at FDL.
What’s your point?
Mark S.
@DougJ®:
Wait, did you put together this presentation? If so, nice work! Good presentations are the key to industrial espionage.
mclaren
On the one hand, it’s marvelous to find this stuff out because it shows how stupid the people are who are trying to destroy America.
On the other hand, it’s depressing, because they’re winning.
Ahasuerus
@Master of Karate and Friendship: I checked too, didn’t find anything either.
@General Stuck: With all due respect, General, I completely disagree with your assessment of the article to which you linked.
I’m not trying to be a troll here; I am genuinely interested in actual evidence that Glenn Greenwald is habitually dishonest. Not in whether you agree with his politics, his tone, or his persona, but whether he actually has a record of intentional dishonesty.
eemom
@DougJ®:
AHA. You are obviously trying to distract us with a red herring.
Everybody knows that John banned his ass cuz he said something mean about Glenn’s BFF Jane — oh wait…..
DougJ®
@eemom:
Why aren’t you volunteering your legal services then?
Elvis Elvisberg
@eemom: I thought that Marcy Wheeler was invaluable during the Scooter Libby case in decoding what was going on (I bring that up ’cause that’s the last time I was really following her). Ad hominem name-calling seems to me a pretty grating, unconvincing way to argue against her. What has she done that her name makes you feel so sad and mad?
eemom
@DougJ®:
Can’t. I am too passionately concerned about the righteousness of GG to be an effective advocate. Love, like justice, is blind.
hamletta
If these guys are so slick, how come they couldn’t do some basic research on Glenn Greenwald? He’s been blogging for how many years now?
What a bunch of clowns.
General Stuck
@Ahasuerus:
I’m sorry, but if you don’t see the dishonesty of claiming that it’s basically bullshit that congress has been the culprit in keeping Gitmo open and preventing the trial of the 50, and bringing these folks to US soil, that includes the man that died, then there is nothing I can do about convincing you otherwise, if I did in fact wanted to.
eemom
@Elvis Elvisberg:
I didn’t say anything adhominem. I said she pretends to be a lawyer, which she does, when she isn’t, which she is not. What makes YOU sad and mad about that?
The Republic of Stupidity
@Elvis Elvisberg:
Ah yes… guilty pleasures…
Kinda ‘splains why I got an ice cream headache just reading that bit about the password…
It’s like the finale to every single Stars Wars movie after the first one…
“And then a plucky band of rebels discovers the secret back screen door to the Empire…”
cathyx
@eemom: What does pretend to be a lawyer mean?
srv
@DougJ®: I call Jackalope.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@General Stuck:
“Bush’s detainees”
WHOSE detainees are they now?
“No it can’t when congress says not a nickel of tax payer money shall be used to do it. ”
If you’re going to keep writing about things that didn’t actually happen, become a novelist.
“Now are you going for the brass ring of dumbest BJ commenter of all time?”
No, that title is already held by this guy who uses hackneyed English and poor spelling to tell people he doesn’t care about them, after which he often launches into long, rambling, expletive-laden tirades about what awful people they are. And, frankly, I think he will hold that title for a long time.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@eemom:
“The people at FDL are morons!”
19 seconds later: “I don’t engage in ad hominem attacks!”
My god, this place is a cesspool.
General Stuck
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
I liked Task Force Ranger better as a handle corner stone. This one is cheesy, and more than a little silly..
Elvis Elvisberg
@eemom: Eh, “let’s play LAWYER” was a pretty grating way to make your point, such as it was. Maybe she’s gotten stuff wrong and that has you upset, I wouldn’t know. I don’t have much view one way or the other on Marcy Wheeler– like I said, I liked what she was doing 4-5 years ago. But, as a lawyer, I am authorized to tell you that any person making a big deal out of being a lawyer is being a jackass.
Suffern ACE
1) I wonder if they gave him dengue fever instead?
2) It would have been interesting to see what evidence they offered that Glenn could be turned by career preservation and what they were planning to do. Get him fired from Salon? (Perhaps Salon is less principaled than Glenn). Offer to clear up the visa situation with his partner so that he could move back to the states and be on the TV? Give him Olberman’s chair on MSNBC? The world will never know how many licks it takes.
martha
@Master of Karate and Friendship: Then why are you here? Jeeze, you must not be very bright if you hang out in cesspools.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ahasuerus: If I may offer a Cliff notes version here. I think that the anti-Greenwald faction here would all say that Greenwald has a tendency, when there multiple possible explanations for an action by an political actor of whom he is critical, to seize on the most negative possible explanation even if it is not the most probable. If the improbability of the explanation he attributes is pointed out to him, Greenwald responds with, for example, accusations that those who disagree are Obama cultists. In other words he seems to have a preferred narrative and to trim his facts to fit his narrative rather than adjust his narrative to fit facts.
Please note that I am simply trying to summarize a large number of comments from many threads and am not stating that this is my view. FWIW GG, in my opinion, is both a fanatical true believer in his causes and polemicist rather than a journalist. These characteristics are both strengths and weaknesses for him.
General Stuck
@Elvis Elvisberg:
So did I. Now she has been assimilated into the mouthbreathing borg. Too bad, I really liked her work before. I still like her, but without trust on what she writes.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@General Stuck:
Wrong AGAIN.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Suffern ACE:
I, too, wonder why they thought he would be so easy to flip.
[looks around at all the Balloon Juice commenters who vehemently disagreed with things like military commissions, warrantless wiretapping, and tax cuts for the rich right up until Barack Obama was inaugurated]
Actually, I don’t, after all.
Mako
But really, this is what BoA is spending their bailout money on? Seriously?
Yeah. thats it. Getting Glenn and page views. We all make a couple of bucks off the suckers. You people make me nauseous.
General Stuck
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
All the firebagger trolls sound alike to me anymore. Wrong is therefore relative.
Anne Laurie
@General Stuck: Oh, for fvck’s sake, Stuck, you know I like you (if only because you give Charley a good home), but you’re letting your fierce allegiance to Obama poison your good sense here. To quote the relevant Greenwald passage:
“The Obama administration” — not President Obama, himself, personally — wanted to move Gul and the other doubleplusungood prisoners from Cuba to Indiana, or Michigan, or some other location in the continental USA where the locals needed the jobs more than they feared scary Moooslim teerists. GG argues that Gul, innocent or guilty, would be just as dead in Indiana as he was in Cuba, and that it is a disgrace to our American civil liberties that this guy spent the last nine years of his life imprisoned without getting a chance to prove that he hadn’t done what “we” said he’d done. There’s about 17 levels of arguments to unpack there, but the issue of whether Greenwald has a proper respect for Barak Obama, the individual now serving as President, is not one of them.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Omnes Omnibus:
Let’s be honest, Omnes: the only reason people here who don’t like Glenn Greenwald don’t like him is because he impugns the motives and character of Barack H. Obama. Period.
Suffern ACE
@Master of Karate and Friendship: Who said they thought it would be easy? They thought it was necessary to do something about him. Two different things.
martha
@Omnes Omnibus: oh very diplomatic and well said. What irritates me about his writing is twofold. First, he needs a damn editor. He uses five or ten paragraphs to say something that could be well said in two or three. Then, more irritatingly, he rarely directly takes responsibility for errors, omissions, or misstatements of fact. In fact, he often seems to use rhetorical devices to minimize evidence that does not support the argument that he’s trying to make. But what do I know, IANAL.
J. Michael Neal
@Omnes Omnibus:
There’s also the problem that he quotes email exchanges in his columns, sometimes cutting off sentences and adding a period in a place where it completely changes the meaning of what his correspondent wrote.
@Ahasuerus:
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Then I guess you both get to remain ignorant. I have cited the exchange multiple times on this blog. Your incompetence at finding them is not my problem.
mrmcd
Also, if you click through and read the actual report – http://wikileaks.ch/IMG/pdf/WikiLeaks_Response_v6.pdf – it’s basically a bunch of stuff pitching BoA on hiring them as highly paid security consultants and includes random screen shots of their “attack vector analysis” software with such attention to detail that a box labeled “Internet Explorer 8.0” has a Firefox logo on it.
Maude
@Elvis Elvisberg:
I am trying to hold off on the lawyer jokes with all the claims of being a lawyer yesterday and today. It seemed to be a big deal as you said.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@J. Michael Neal:
“I have cited the exchange multiple times on this blog. ”
Then why doesn’t a search of the archives show it?
@martha:
“First, he needs a damn editor. He uses five or ten paragraphs to say something that could be well said in two or three. ”
That irritates you? Then I’m guessing you’re not a fan of Dickens or Melville.
“Then, more irritatingly, he rarely directly takes responsibility for errors, omissions, or misstatements of fact.”
I’d ask you for examples, but I’m learning not to get my hopes up.
Rick Taylor
@General Stuck:
First in a post where you claim Glenn is dishonest, you completely misrepresent what he said, saying he said Obama was responsible for the heart attack death of a Guantanamo inmate, when the article he wrote doesn’t say that at all. Then you completely ignore the main point Glenn was making, which was the administration has argued in favor of keeping 50 people in prison without trial, among them the man who died. If Glenn is wrong about this, then you should be denouncing the New York times, as he gives a link to a New York times article that says pretty much that.
J. Michael Neal
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
FYWP? I have no idea. As I said, that’s not my problem. I have no intention of running around and reposting the same things over and over and over just because some people didn’t read them the first time.
Although, I do remember that one of my posts on the subject was also a response to Anne Laurie slandering people with Asperger’s, if that helps you find it.
Master of Karate and Friendship
BTW, a Google search of “J. Michael Neal Glenn Greenwald” turns up this page ONLY from Balloon Juice. Just FYI.
Omnes Omnibus
@martha: I can do diplomatic.
@J. Michael Neal: A lot of people have differing pet peeves with GG. I was trying to cut to the central issue, one that I think most Greenwald critics would agree upon.
In fairness to the others, you may have been “JMN, Master of…” when you posted some of your stuff. BTW, sorry to hear about the job.
Ahasuerus
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. FWIW, I find little to disagree with in your analysis. Perhaps Greenwald’s tendency to assume the worst is simply a result of having witnessed so much of that worst in the makings of US policy over the past several decades (centuries?).
I asked my original question (about Greenwald’s honesty) because, whether I have agreed or disagreed with him, I have always been impressed with the rigor of his arguments and the supporting evidence for those arguments. Progressive champion or and insufferable prick, he does usually seem to be right.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@J. Michael Neal:
“I have no intention of running around and reposting the same things over and over and over ”
Isn’t that, like, the third time you’ve written that in this thread?
Cacti
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
And anyone who likes Barack H. Obama is no better than Leni Riefenstahl. Ammiright?
El Cid
The bank and the security firms HB Gary, Palantir, and Berico which noted Glenn Greenwald to be an important target are clearly emo manic progressives.
Here is the set of PowerPoint slides from them as mentioned anyway.
Here is what it says about GG.
Here are some suggested strategies toward the various individuals and organizations connected to Wikileaks.
gwangung
@Master of Karate and Friendship: Ah, I should remind you that you only need to stab once or twice if you know what you’re doing.
*Sigh* Kids these days.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Anne Laurie, any idea what he’s talking about? An archive search for “asperger’s” turns up nothing.
gwangung
BTW, people can change their handles.
Now, fess up…you’re only ACTING like a Glenn-bot, as a piece of performance art.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Cacti:
No, you are not right in that post.
General Stuck
@Anne Laurie:
Way to clip the quote you gave to leave out the relevant passage.
This is a lie. A black lie at that. And are you really arguing here that Greenwald “respects” Barak Obama, you”re misspelling, not mine. Looks intentional to me, but only you know for sure. Greenwald hates all presidents, or at least the office they hold, and has respect for nothing that what he considers centralized authority. It is hard to parse out any personal animus for the actual person sitting in the oval office, but claiming GG “respects” Obama is laughable in the abstract.
You are in over your head Anne, I like you, even though I think you are full of it on politics.
Maybe you missed the earlier thread on the Patriot Act where I respectfully slammed Obama for supporting it as is and for 3 years. So your accusation is bullshit as demonstrated earlier today.
And the least you could do is show some respect for Obama at a minimum by spelling his damn name right.
Jay C
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
And what about those of us who are still in “vehement disagreement” with these policies (and pissed off about President Obama’s failure to at least TRY to end them)? Does our opinion count more then?
Gee, thanks!
gwangung
@Master of Karate and Friendship: Aha! Performance art!
But poorly done. Glenn-bots aren’t THAT stupid and one track minded.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@martha:
“Then why are you here?”
I used to come here all the time, back before Obama became president and basically continued doing what Bush did in most areas. Unfortunately, when that happened most of the people here decided those things weren’t so bad, or it was just 8907072 dimensional chess, or The Media! or whatever.
Nowadays, when I see an article about how Obama wants to cut federal money to help poor people buy heating fuel, or he supports Egypt’s chief torturer as that country’s next president even though that’s not what the Egyptian people want, I often stop over here to see if anyone is talking about it. Just out of curiosity, I guess. Shrug.
Suffern ACE
@El Cid:
Sounds like they have experience working with those kinds of professionals before. I wonder if they made a brochure listing their success stories that is sitting on some exec’s desk somewhere.
eemom
@Maude:
why thank you, 70s sitcom character.
Yes, I knew I was going to get a response like that. Fuck it. The only point I’ve been trying to make all along is that people who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about shouldn’t pretend like they do. If that makes me one who makes a big deal out of being a lawyer, so be it.
Wooohoooo! I’m A LAAAAAAAAWWWWYEEEERRRR!
sharl
From the second hit on this Google search, there are some specific criticisms on GG from J. Michael Neal & Tom Hilton in comments. Others there as well (scan down the post).
I haven’t checked the other 90 results (89 other posts plus this post) for content, but from the few words in the hit list items, you can probably find similar relevant content in things toward the top of the results list.
I’m not getting into the argument about Greenwald’s merits or lack of same. I was just curious as to whether searching for Mr. Neal’s criticisms was that hard. It does not appear to be difficult.
Omnes Omnibus
@Master of Karate and Friendship: This google search (“j. michael neal” greenwald “balloon juice” ) pulled up 1310 results. I don’t intend to comb through them, but damn….
Wile E. Quixote
@russell:
Oh I dunno, after the last few years I think that Anonymous couldn’t do any worse than BoA did in the field of of high-level international finance.
WarMunchkin
So, it only took till post #2 to start the GG post at BJ thread-destroying cycle?
Ahasuerus
@J. Michael Neal: I do not wish to quarrel with you. I asked my original question because you made the flat assertion that GG was habitually dishonest. I simply wanted some verification.
sharl
Here’s the post that includes the Asperger’s back-and-forth (3 ‘Ctrl-F’ hits on ‘Asperger’)
Omnes Omnibus
@Wile E. Quixote:
A troop of baboons with tertiary syphilis and internet access couldn’t do worse than the MotU have done.
Corner Stone
@martha:
And I guess you criticize climate research because Al Gore is fat?
J. Michael Neal
@Ahasuerus: Yes, and sharl and Omnes don’t seem to think that finding it is nearly as hard as you do.
Ahasuerus
@sharl: Thank you. My original search was within the Balloon Juice archives; I should have just gone to Teh Google first.
eemom
in the interests of Blog Peace, let me venture a proposition that perhaps we can all agree upon, i.e., this episode proves what charlatans most “consultants” are.
[cue shitstorm of abuse from consultants]
junebug
This is probably the best thing to ever happen to Greenwald. He spouts his newly found concern for this that or the other, but finally someone somewhere named him. BINGO$$$$$$
I’m sorry (not really) but someone who didn’t have a clue about any of this shit until December of 2005 is not on the radar for me except to mock.
I actually know people who risked more than he has. This is another way for Greenwald to make his name. Whatever that means — another way to raise funds.
He’s just as bad as the ones who latch onto any little thing to raise money. I think the latest one is named Christine.
It’s all bullshit, John. Complete bullshit.
Master of Karate and Friendship
You think that’s a lie?
Closing Guantánamo Fades as a Priority
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: As bad as consultants are, at least they aren’t lawyers.
Villago Delenda Est
Whenever these Ferengi assholes squeal, it’s pure projection.
As it is in this case.
Morbo
So… BoA gave Glenn Dengue fever?
The Republic of Stupidity
@El Cid:
After a quick stroll through the comments on this thread, it would appear the strategy is working…
And which ones (posters) are the corporate plants? In your opinion…
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
what this country needs is Consultant Reform!
General Stuck
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
That’s precious from a senate that voted 90 to 6 to block closing Gitmo. Keep humping there Karate dude, you almost have the summit of Mt. Stupid.
martha
@Master of Karate and Friendship: I know, I know, the President is the devil incarnate. And we’d be so much better off with John McCain and Sarah Palin leading us through the wilderness.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
….but speaking of lawyers…….did I mention I AM ONE?
Omnes Omnibus
@Master of Karate and Friendship: What was the vote in Congress on legislation to close it? How bloody do you want Obama to get his head as he beats it against that brick wall?
General Stuck
@eemom:
Or Consultant Lawyers or Lawyer Consultants. same difff
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: I hadn’t heard.
junebug
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Out of context.
Congress has made it impossible. The administration placed quite a few, despite the adversity.
martha
@Corner Stone: LOL. Heck no. I’m a disciple of Al’s. He knows the value of a good picture to illustrate a point.
Suffern ACE
@Morbo:
Actually that would raise my opinion of Glenn and Salon considerably if that were true. It would indicate that the attempts at flippin’ Greenwald like a liberal professional failed and would indicate a very high level of integrity. Either that, or it was just less expensive. Unfortunately, that means that I hope BoA gave Glenn Greenwald Dengue fever, although I would rather no one was giving anyone Dengue fever, since that is really mean.
I refuse to believe my own conspiracy theory and find it implausible.
martha
@eemom: You rang?
Stillwater
@Omnes Omnibus: Please note that I am simply trying to summarize a large number of comments from many threads and am not stating that this is my view.
Fence sitter. Take a side, will ya, this shit’s important!
Omnes Omnibus
@Stillwater: If you had kept reading, you would have seen my view expressed.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck:
I just wanted to make sure this got repeated. Because I find it very instructive.
Anne Laurie
@General Stuck:
Okay, I apologize for the misspelling of President Barack Obama. As for the rest of your comment, since I know nothing about Glenn Greenwald beyond what I read of his writings, I have no idea what he, personally, feels about Barack Obama. What I said was “the issue of whether Greenwald has a proper respect for Barak Obama, the individual now serving as President, is not [the issue here].”
If I say tomatoes don’t do well in my back yard, this has nothing to do with whether I like tomatoes (I do) or whether I “blame” my backyard for being well-shaded (I don’t). You’re conflating your opinion of Greenwald, to which you are entitled, with the question of whether Greenwald deserves to be targeted by BoA’s hired nitwits. I say it’s a waste of my tax dollars for BoA to be throwing money at “security consultants” who think “turning” Greenwald is either worthwhile or (for an organisation of their apparent abilities) possible. I would still think it was a waste of tax dollars even if these Ninja Security Specialists restricted themselves to “targeting” people like the NYTimes suit who wrote that anti-Assange article, because (a) why pay for what you can get free; and (b) these Ninja Security Specialists don’t even seem up to that level of competence.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Actually, I was shocked to see you had a view. I’m still a little querulous.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@J. Michael Neal:
.
.
I dislike J. Michael Neal a lot, and think that he is habitually dishonest.
Just saying it is a Magical Balloonbagger Certainty Principle proof requiring nothing further.
.
.
junebug
@Omnes Omnibus:
He’s a new comer looking for publicity. I remember his nonsense about interviewing Petreaus and it was all nonsense.
The trouble with Greenwald is the same as it is on the other side. He’s just trying to justify his position and make money off of it.
Again, I know people who have stood for more and never gotten paid a dime.
Greenwald is not a voice for progressives. He’s never been a voice for me. Too young and too stupid.
Jim, Once
@Elvis Elvisberg: Wow. I’m not an IT nerd (that would be my sons), but that was amazingly entertaining.
mr. whipple
Can’t we talk about something more pleasant, like Jane Hamsher?
Jenny
Who is Glenn Greenwald?
Is this a blogger thing?
Bloggers are far too insular for their own good.
Master of Karate and Friendship
From J. Michael Neal:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/02/03/credit-where-its-due/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+balloon-juice+%28www.balloon-juice.com%29#comment-2409094
LOL. That’s absolutely absurd. He makes it sound like Greenwald was trying to hide the fact that Ryan Singel was criticizing him, when that’s what the whole column was about!
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/02/03/credit-where-its-due/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+balloon-juice+%28www.balloon-juice.com%29#comment-2409369
is a lame criticism as well. “Oh, Glenn Greenwald has no problem with calling conservatives sub-human!” Nonsense!
By the way, J. Michael Neal, does your pompous self-regard ever cause you to lose your balance? Even in those archived threads you’re breaking out with “I have already pointed that out, so I shan’t do so again. I hardly have the time to keep re-posting something.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I have a wide variety of views on a wide variety of issues. I often express them. If you have not noticed this, it not really my problem.
El Cid
@The Republic of Stupidity:
I am. It’s a clever ruse.
I wouldn’t assume that anyone on here are corporate plants. First, I think that such corporate plants would target much more relevant and significant arenas.
The Balloon Juice comments section would merit at most the cheap hired right wing trolls who are not likely to pull a sophisticated strategy. They usually just get paid to post at all.
Second, though there are agents provocateurs and spies sent into local and larger scale activist organizations — I was part of a group with a member who could have been, as he appeared out of nowhere, appeared to not be too familiar with the context of discussion, and immediately advocated clumsy acts of violence, and shortly disappeared as we calmly dismissed any such suggestions, though we knew enough to never make such accusations — I don’t see anything here which is different from the range of opinions I have frequently encountered.
With regard to actual, active groups, liberal and left groups can certainly be targeted and successfully disrupted or trapped by covert agents or turned members, but they can also do this to themselves. And not just by active division, sometimes via inactivity or boredom which sends people away. The latter is much more common.
If you’re part of a group which does things in the real world, I recommend that no one make accusations of covert police or corporate identity at someone, since it will create paranoia and suspicion among all. Do what you would do if you assumed that at all times such a person or monitoring device was present. Well, nearly all the time.
General Stuck
@Anne Laurie:
No, I haven’t mentioned the BoA thing, and unwisely simply let myself get involved in another round of glenbot V Obot, which I wish I hadn’t. Please don’t read into what I think about things I haven’t mentioned.
And for the record, I have no sympathy for BoAm, or any fucking bankster. And I have no idea if they spent tax payer money for their pathetic behavior toward GG. But you will have to excuse me if I think the whole thing is fairly humorous. That is why my quip about Maxwell Smart and Lex Luthur. But I am on GG side for this particular event. Rest assured.
WyldPirate
@J. Michael Neal:
bull-fucking-shit.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s not really a problem for me either punkin.
Stillwater
@Corner Stone: Yes. And this
Looks intentional to me, but only you know for sure. Greenwald hates all presidents, or at least the office they hold, and has respect for nothing that what he considers centralized authority.
coming from a person who’s sole criticism of GG is that he conjures unseemly motives to account for Obama’s policy choices, is also instructive.
junebug
@Anne Laurie:
Let me simplify it for you: anything that brings Greenwald money is good for team Greenwald. It disheartens me that you or any of the other front pagers still ‘believe’ in Greenwald.
Hell, he only came to politics in 2005 — which should be an insult — he doesn’t live in this country — and he is a quitter, much like Sarah.
Why you all think he has something important to say baffles me.
Corner Stone
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Oh, thank God you’re here to help guide us through this tremulous time Uncle Clarence.
J. Michael Neal is not exactly the fount of truth and knowledge, or actually, personality. Come to think of it.
ruemara
I’m fascinated by how a fairly smart bunch devolve into which ones prefer posters of Obama or Glenn on their bedroom walls. Seriously? This is about Glenn vs Obama? I thought it was about BofA attempting to silence critics. Carry on, we can get to 300 posts!
Master of Karate and Friendship
@General Stuck:
YOU said it’s a lie that Barack Obama claims to want to close Gitmo but isn’t working towards it.
So I posted proof that he isn’t working towards it.
Fin.
Omnes Omnibus
@ruemara: If you think this is bad, there was a rehash of the 2008 Dem. primary in a thread earlier today.
gwangung
With the yapping chihuahua? No problem.
Cain
@martha:
That’s a bit of an unfair comment. Once he is elected it’s our job to make sure he’s on the straight and narrow and work on the agenda. Guantanamo is a sore spot for the middle east and is being used as a way to recruit more terrorists. It must be closed and the rule of law established.
The administration needs to put the kind of work they did on healthcare they did on this. It’s just too bad we can’t seem to get past Republican demagoguery for this. The way to stop this is to get a DOJ guy to ask these fools whether they believe that we’re incompetent that we can’t hold priosoners in a supermax prison or if they believe that these people can’t get a fair trial.
I’m disappointed that Obama administration didn’t give this priority. But if it is important to us, then we need to press the issue with our congress people.
The key ingredient that we liberals and progressives don’t seem to do is organize and start hitting congress especially the liberal parts. Corner them and ask them. Call them out. But we don’t seem to do that. We’re like those Arabs who cry about the Palestinians getting abused but do nothing about it. If it isn’t a priority for us, then it’s not going to be a priority for anybody.
cain
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Corner Stone:
“And I guess you criticize climate research because Al Gore is fat? ”
Well, he did make a 100 minute movie when only 70 or 80 minutes were completely necessary! ;)
Suffern ACE
@ruemara: @Omnes Omnibus:
I know. We have to do better than this if we want to attract professional infiltrators.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Those who don’t learn their history…
General Stuck
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
No, you posted statements from idiot senators whose senate blocked and continues to block closing of Gitmo by an overwhelming margin. Not to mention blocking stateside trials Obama was trying to conduct.
Hump a little more, yer almost there.
El Cid
@junebug: The fact that a writer lives in another country is absolutely irrelevant, to me or to their ability to make an argument.
An argument is a thing which stands or falls on its own; it is dependent on neither biography or geography.
Some of the most useful insights on the workings of this country I’ve ever seen are from intellectuals (professional or amateur) who not only live elsewhere, but write in another language. (Eduardo Galeano, anyone?)
It’s no different than someone here analyzing the policies of Mexico and if insightful enough being published in a Mexican newspaper.
General Stuck
The brainpower on this thread is simply stunning.
Corner Stone
@Master of Karate and Friendship: To be honest, I never actually watched it. I was scared to death he would show up at some point in earth tones.
General Stuck
@Stillwater:
Fap fap fap
Tim
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Fuckhead: It has occurred to me on more than one occasion of late, that the GG haters here are on some kind of payroll…the constant attacks and obsessive focus on alleged character traits, such as “self righteousness, sanctimoniousness, arrogance, etc.” run parallel to the ongoing character assassination of Julian Assange. Even if GG WAS a dick on a personal level, who the hell cares?
And the Glen haters at BJ attack pro-GG commenters with a hatefulness that seems entirely over the top. It smells like bullshit.
Jenny
@Omnes Omnibus:
which group was snacking on the sour grapes?
martha
@Cain: You just gave the mature response I should have given. I agree. I just get tired of the usual baloney so I respond accordingly…I’m only human. I’m also tired. It’s been a day and a half.
junebug
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Idiot. So the poor people that I saw pictures of the landed in a paradise instead of the hell hole that is their homeland was a fiction?
Idiot.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny:
Yes.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@General Stuck:
Well, technically, Carl Levin (my Senator) was one of the 6 who voted for moving the Gitmo prisoners to the US.
But even if he weren’t, the fact that Senators from across the spectrum agree that Obama isn’t working very hard to close that prison camp means he probably isn’t working very hard. Honestly, what has he done lately?
J. Michael Neal
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
No, dipshit. He misquotes Singel to make it look like Singel is defending him from an attack by Kevin Poulsen, which is what the entire comment is about. He throws in one caveat, but all of his citations from Singel’s email are used to buttress his points. That is an extremely selective and dishonest use of the email.
He actually quotes Singel twice. The first time is:
What Singel actually said was that Lamo is starved for attention and keeps providing journalists with odd leads THAT PAN OUT. The point wasn’t to impugn Lamo as a source, but to defend Kevin Poulsen’s contacts with him as being something other than the NSA plot Glenn seems to have dreamed up.
The second citation is this:
Again, what he talks about in regards to Singel is lavish praise, and never deals with the voluminous criticisms Singel made of his column. That’s dishonest. Had he concluded that quote with a ellipsis rather than a period, he would have been merely misleading and dishonest. He didn’t, turning it into a flat out lie.
Greenwald also can’t seem to make up his mind as to whether he’s accusing Poulsen of violating journalistic ethics. In his columns, he is. In his email exchange with Singel, he says that he doesn’t.
Glenn Greenwald’s heart is in the right place. I generally agree with him on civil liberties issues, though he goes farther than I do. But he is so committed to his cause that he cuts corners. As Stuck points out, it means that he takes a shotgun approach to assigning blame and doesn’t bother to mention any of the complicating factors. He also bolsters his case with misleading and dishonest statements. For some reason, he needs the story to be simple, and he’s prepared to do what he has to do to keep it that way. That has a tendency to lead him over the line into dishonesty.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@junebug:
I think I understood that. If I did, you are saying that because 4 or 5 prisoners from Guantanamo have been released by Obama, that means it’s alright that hundreds more are still being held there. Or something.
And you can listen to me, because I live in the USA! ! !
Stillwater
@General Stuck: You are in over your head Stuck, I like you, even though I think you are full of it on politics.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
goddamn, stuck. You either can’t read or you’re lying out your ass. Greenwald says no such thing in that link you silly fuckwit.
Jenny
This is mindbloggling.
Reading Glenn Greenwald’s wikipedia page it says he was a lawyer for a white supremacist who murdered the husband and mother a liberal judge.
Why would any liberal support a Klan lawyer, even if he purportedly no longer supports the Klan?
J. Michael Neal
@Tim:
I have no idea who Karate guy is, but my dislike of Corner Stone goes back far beyond any discussions of Glenn Greenwald.
Edit: And I should apologise to Ahasuerus. He/she got sucked into a discussion involving someone with whom I have a personal dislike, and my ire was thrown around too broadly. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get mad at you.
junebug
@El Cid: Nice side stepping that Greenwald only came to his politics in December 2005.
Again, I have and I know many people who were politically aware before his awakening. It’s all fake and just to make money.
The sooner we identify it the better.
eemom
@Suffern ACE:
Finally, someone talking SENSE around here. Sir/madam, may I have the honor of subscribing to your newsletter?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: Most 1st Amendment cases involve crappy people.
Corner Stone
@J. Michael Neal: Excellent. How’s the joss, amigo? Still bad?
Stillwater
@Jenny: Why would any liberal support a Klan lawyer, even if he purportedly no longer supports the Klan?
He’s not a liberal, he’s a civil libertarian. And the ACLU defends the klan frequently. Are their motives suspect as well?
J. Michael Neal
@Jenny:
Because he takes his commitment as a defense attorney seriously. This is something I’ll defend Greenwald on. Everyone, even the Klan, deserves a legal defense. Greenwald did the right thing here.
Jenny
@Omnes Omnibus: defending the blood soaked had of the Klan is as bad as defending BofA.
Yet libs aren’t tolerant of corporate lawyers.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
I stand by that statement, it was the gist of the article, that in my opinion was implying gitmo was responsible for the mans death and imparting blame on Obama, and not congress for the entirely of the situation in general at gitmo, and tangentially the death of mr. Gul. You can take it any way you want.
It is art of polemic supposition imo. And will call it that when I think it true.
Wile E. Quixote
@junebug:
Yeah, what a craven opportunist. What a parvenu. I fucking hate people like that. Goddamn, he reminds me of that former 19K who likes to mop naked and ran a conservative website until 2005 when he all of a sudden got pissed off about l’affaire Schiavo, decided that the Republicans were nuts and became a Democrat. Fuck! If I could only remember that guy’s name and the name of his website. It was something like “Jon Cote” and the website’s name was “A Snarling Mass of Vitriolic, Vicious Jackals.” Or something like that anyways.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@J. Michael Neal:
Nonsense. Look at this:
It’s clear he is refuting Wired’s claim that he is not a good source. I mean, if they’ve quoted him before, how can he not be a quotable source?
How does that disprove the thesis that Lamo is just out for attention in this latest matter?
Oooh, he used a period, not an ellipses! Meanwhile, Wired has valuable evidence that it sits on. Which is worse?
Now I see why you were unwilling to point me to this stuff.
“I generally agree with him on civil liberties issues, though he goes farther than I do.”
Oh what, you think only some people shouldn’t be held without trial, or wiretapped without oversight, or assassinated by presidential order? I’d hate to think you were one of those “give me liberty or give me death” types.
Jenny
@Stillwater: The ACLU defends serial murderers? Can you name a specific case, cause I’ve never heard of one.
junebug
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
You are kind of stupid. It’s more than 4 or 5 and there are not hundreds there.
This I blame on Greenwald. Such stupid.
J. Michael Neal
@Corner Stone: Eh. I’m starting to think I’m never going to have a serious job again.
eemom
this thread is all kinds of fun, just as I suspected it would be when I saw who was the subject.
It is so fun it ALMOST, but not quite, makes up for the return of Stoned Cracker.
That is a pity. Good DougJ, did you HAVE to mention HRC in that DNC post? I mean he was SO into that mindset of his guru Fuckeduphead about how we’re all so far beneath him he can’t even abiding READING the place anymore…..and you had to go and bring up the only woman in the world he isn’t an asshole to…..
Master of Karate and Friendship
“In 1770, John Adams defended British soldiers accused of killing five colonists on Boston Green in what became known as the Boston Massacre. Even though he disagreed with British policies, he wanted to ensure the British soldiers got a fair trial.”
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/johnadams/tp/johnadams_top10.htm
Can we put to sleep this “he defended a Klansman?!?” nonsense now?
gwangung
@Jenny: Meh. This is like an ad hominen argument. Pretty insipid and very weak sauce.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: I will disagree completely.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@junebug:
“You are kind of stupid” says the guy who thinks Glenn Greenwald is a golddigger who should be ignored because he does not currently live in the United States.
Jenny
@Stillwater:
Well, by example, the people who got OJ Simpson off of a brutal double homicide are reprehensible. They’re at the very least as bad as corporate lawyers and lobbyist.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@junebug:
“Hell, he only came to politics in 2005”
Hmmm. Does civil rights or the Constitution have anything to do with politics? Anything at all?
Edit: that’s from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald
Stillwater
@Jenny: The ACLU defends their first amendment rights to protest, or parade about, when state and local governments deny the application. They don’t defend them in criminal cases. Look, you have to know this.
Jenny
@gwangung: How so? Progressive blogs hate, hate, hate lobbyists and corporate lawyers, which I concurr, but yet find nothing wrong in defending the KKK – isn’t that the least bit inconsistent?
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Jenny:
“Well, by example, the people who got OJ Simpson off of a brutal double homicide are reprehensible. ”
What, exactly, are you saying? That if “everyone knows someone is guilty” no one should represent them? How about if we just stop giving trials to people we “just know” are guilty? Actually, why have trials at all, since everyone who is charged with a crime is “known” to be guilty by someone?
Seriously, what is your position on this?
Anyway, I also am going home, for sleep.
Nutella
Anyone notice that junebug is General Stuck?
Off to update the pie filter…
eemom
@Jenny:
Actually this is a very interesting point you raise.
It is absolutely a fundamental tenet of our legal system that everyone, no matter how vile, deserves a competent defense, and therefore one cannot fault GG for defending a Klansman, because someone has to do it.
It is also true that GG the blogger has paid lip service to that proposition, e.g., with respect to Eric Holder having defended Chiquita Banana wrt bad stuff it did in South America — which some “progressive” persons were raising against his appointment as AG back in early 2009.
But….as always with GG, when push comes to shove, principle yields to rhetorical expediency — and hence his demagoguery last summer against Elena Kagan for positions she took as Solicitor General — i.e., the LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE of the U.S. Government.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: Defending a principle like free speech even for those whose speech we don’t like?
gwangung
@Jenny: Nope.
And you’re acting like the Klan, here, working solely off of external characteristics. Weak, weak sauce.
Jenny
@Master of Karate and Friendship: Libs should be consistent and treat Klan lawyers with the same rightful scorn they rightfully heap on Goldman Sachs.
gwangung
@Jenny: Now, you’re trolling.
Go home, kid.
J. Michael Neal
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
I think the Bush administration left us with an insoluble mess. We have a bunch of people who we know are guilty, but we cannot try because of the terms of their captivity. There are a small number of these among the prisoners at Guantanamo. Even if Obama wanted to release them, it’s a political non-starter; that would get him impeached.
I think the least bad of all of the alternatives is, yes, to hold on to them. I would give them actual PoW status, based upon their membership in an organization that declared war on the US. It’s not a solution I like, but just setting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed free is something I like less. POW status was designed for something like this; you hold combatants until the end of hostilities. That doesn’t have to be until we defeat “terrorism,” but can be until we defeat al Qaeda.
The question of assassinating American citizens who have declared their membership in an organization that is at war with the US is another complicated one. I fall on the side that thinks that attacking our enemies is okay, regardless of which country they are citizens of. It was perfectly okay to shoot at Confederate soldiers, and my position is that they were always American citizens, too. That’s what war is.
That gets to the other problematic part which is that what constitutes “war” no longer meets the statutory definition thereof. The last few decades have seen the decline of the nation-state as the only important actor on the international stage. That’s true in a lot more fields than just warfare. We have not yet managed to codify what the new status is, and the Republicans caucus of whine isn’t helping that along, but it is not the case that only nation-states can enter into a state of war at this point.
Which isn’t to say that, status quo ante, a warfare model is the correct way to fight al Qaeda, but, again, that’s a decision that was made years before Obama took office.
My civil liberties complaints with the administration are more on the executive’s ability too operate in secret. I think they’ve been much more careful than the Bushies not to operate illegally, but I am opposed to some of the stances they have taken in court to establish the boundaries of what are legal. On the question of the detainees, I think they’ve done their best with what was an extremely bad hand.
What, exactly, do you want them to do? Just releasing the prisoners in Cuba isn’t even an option, because no one will take them. Where do they go?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: Libs?
General Stuck
@Nutella:
Yo momma wear combat boots mr/ms toast.
J. Michael Neal
@Jenny:
I do. You don’t seem to understand what it is that corporate lawyers spend most of their time doing. When they are actually defending firms they represent, I have no problem with their actions. However, that’s only a tiny element.
The proper analogy is not criticizing Greenwald for defending the Klan in litigation. It would be if Greenwald had sat down with the Klan and helped them plan the things they were accused of. The corporate lawyers that I have no use for are the ones that are complicit in the crimes committed. Greenwald did nothing of the sort.
Jenny
@eemom: I find it odd that no one sees the inconsistency in disliking corporate lawyers on one hand, but liking Klan lawyers on the other hand.
eemom
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
psst….Greenwald’s cred as a “constitutional lawyer” pretty much begins and ends with the Matthew Hale case. He practiced law of ANY kind for a grand total of about 8 years, and some of those were as a drone at a NYC megafirm. Laurence Tribe he ain’t.
Lysana
@General Stuck: And you left your typo on “your” in there to be ironic? And you fail to recognize that someone as bright as Anne Laurie just might be prone to the occasional typo? That was pathetic.
Odie Hugh Manatee
One thing that is funny about the emails sent between the parties involved in this is that there are tons of misspellings and improper word usage sprinkled throughout them.
It’s like they were written by kids who spent too much time fucking off at school.
General Stuck
@J. Michael Neal:
Spooky. I read this comment, and it stated precisely my position on every point made. Or, THIS
Allan
@Tim: Read my comment above at 27, and die in a fire, you sleazy slandering fuckstick.
Suffern ACE
When Goldman finds itself so marginalized that it can not hope to mount a competent defense without turning to the ACLU-I’m sure the ACLU will be more than willing to help and I wouldn’t begrudge them one bit for their work.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: I find odd that there really are people who associate representation of a client with approval of any and all of the client’s actions.
Jenny
@J. Michael Neal: Glenn’s wiki page says he was a corporate lawyer at the well known corporate firm. So you’re saying that makes him a criminal? I can see your point.
Jenny
@Omnes Omnibus: Really, because people do that all the time with lobbyists and corporate lawyers. I bet most people in the blogosphere do, including yourself.
Sapient
@J. Michael Neal: Well said.
I also agree with opposing secrecy, but don’t blame the Obama administration to try to establish boundaries for their actions in court. Our government has three branches, and when the executive goes to a court to litigate the expansion of executive authority, that’s when the court should be weighing in to limit it.
This is an important difference between Obama and Bush. By working through the legal system, Obama has made it possible for other branches of government to use checks and balances against his executive authority. Bush, in contrast, did most of what he did in secret beyond the ability of the courts to weigh in. That was the whole purpose of Guantanamo and the black sites – so that he could avoid having his actions scrutinized by the courts. And, of course, his administration officials ignored subpoenas by Congress, etc.
Just my two cents.
J. Michael Neal
@Jenny: If he was ever complicit in a crime, then, yes, he’s a criminal. I have no knowledge to suggest that he did, mind you, so that’s just a conditional.
Jenny
@Suffern ACE: So you agree with me that corporate lawyers are scum, not because they’re lawyers, not because of the field they choose, but because of the clients the take.
But yet you don’t see how the same logic would apply to Klan lawyers. It’s not that they’re lawyers, it’s not that they’re in criminal defense, it’s they take Klan money.
hamletta
Jeez, you guys, way to miss the point!
GG may or may not be a poopyhead, but can we not agree that this HBWhatever Federal is a klown kar of hilarity and incompetence? Jeez, the Metafilter thread was much more entertaining.
Also, this “Jenny” person is either a troll or an idiot. The rights of the accused are a cornerstone of civil liberties, and important to any liberal (or libertarian) worthy of their own particular L-word.
“Her” attempts to cast aspersions on Greenwald for defending a member of the KKK are no less reprehensible than the accusations against the JAGs who defended accused terrorists.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: matoko_chan, is that you?
General Stuck
@Lysana:
Nope, I left it in there because of terrible grammar, that is in fact pathetic.
scav
Jenny’s clearly a sort that can’t distinguish corporate personhood from actual personhood. There’s a clue.
Joel
Just for reference, the site search doesn’t look through comments as far as I know.
Dayman.. Aaaaaahhhhh
demimondian
@Jenny: Because he’s a *lawyer*? I mean, it may come as a surprise, but attorneys have a professional imperative to defend folks, even those whose views they find repellent.
demimondian
@gwangung: Hey, don’t steal my fun!
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
Sorry I flew off the handle and called you a fuckwit, Stuck.
I think you are misinterpreting what Greenwald said as Anne Laurie suggested. Greenwald is legitimately criticizing the fact that the government–which Obama is a part of–has drug its feet in trying these people.
And BTW, Gitmo could have been closed down long ago. The could easily transfer all of the prisoners to the prison in Bagram. They have the capacity there and Congress can’t really raise–nor would they raise–any legitimate objections to such a move.
Moreover, it is fundamentally wrong that we, as a nation, refuse to give creedence to the one of the fundamental cornerstone of jurisprudence of Western Civilization, habeus corpus. It’s in the goddamned Magna Carta for crisssakes.
And no, I don’t give two fucks that Lincoln suspended habeus corpus. That was wrong. Those prisoners shouldn’t have to wait that long for a trial nor should they.
I agree that Congress cocked up things by refusing to provide funds for the trial of the Gitmo prisoners by the Federal Courts. I think its BS, but we should damn well find a way to resolve this matter by military tribunal. No matter how evil some of the Gitmo prisoners may be, they deserve a trial aqnd deserve to face their accusers and present evidence for their innocence. They deserve this and if they don’t get it, we are a fucking hypocrites as a nation.
Jenny
@scav: That’s true. That’s why I don’t understand why taking money to defend Goldman is considered worst than taking money to defend the Klan in progressive circles. It should be the other way around.
hamletta
@Omnes Omnibus: It hurts me to say this, but that’s an insult to matoko_chan.
“Jenny” is obviously a cudlipper of the first water.
Just Some Fuckhead
Has Greenwald ever condemned Stalin for eating broccoli?
J. Michael Neal
@Sapient:
I agree. Working within the legal system to establish what they can do and then sticking to it is very important to me, and it’s a huge difference between Bush and Obama. I just object to where this administration is trying to set the boundaries.
To a fair extent, I don’t even think the Obama administration is the real problem here. Executive Branch works zealously to expand its powers. Film at 11. What’s going on is a complete dereliction of duty on the part of Congress to provide oversight, and a somewhat less complete dereliction of duty by the courts to hold the executive accountable.
The fundamental problem of American politics is that Congress doesn’t do its job, either collectively or by individual legislators.
Jenny
@demimondian: No they don’t. Private attorneys have no professional imperative to accept work from anyone, much less the KKK.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: The man represented an individual in a First Amendment case. He is a civil libertarian. It is what he does or did back then. I am of two minds as to whether you are an idiot or just a troll.
hamletta
@Jenny: “Imperative.” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Xenos
@mrmcd: Palantir Technologies? These guys run a business titled ‘Palantir Technologies’?
And they have clients?
Wile E. Quixote
@junebug:
Shorter junebug:
Jennyjinx
@Jenny (who isn’t me)
You know what’s awesome about teh Google? It helps you find things such as this.
“FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQS) ON WHY THE ACLU DEFENDS FREE SPEECH FOR RACISTS AND TOTALITARIANS”
Free speech includes all speech, including that which we personally find abhorrent.
And, really, Google is your friend. Trust in teh Google.
Wile E. Quixote
@Jenny:
And the ACLU is under no imperative to defend the KKK or Ollie North, yet nevertheless they did. Makes you think, doesn’t it. Well not you specifically, I mean I’ve flushed toilets whose contents were more intelligent than you are.
Jenny
@Omnes Omnibus: the individual you speak of is a white supremacist who murdered a Judge’s mother and husband.
Taking money from a convicted serial murdering Klansman isn’t honorable. And calling me names doesn’t make it so.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
I don’t think Bagram is a real solution to closing down Gitmo. And I think Obama has done his best with the situation he was handed. It is a shame, the entire mess caused by Bush and his thugs thumbing their nose at every law they could, and especially the “cornerstone” of Habeus. There are 50 to be held indefinitely, and POW status should be given to them now, if this country is going to hold prisoners of war, then they should have that status. Forty are scheduled for trial by commission as of last word, and the remaining 110 are set for release as soon as there is somewhere to release them to. ie country.
On this particular issue, I just don’t see the claimed Obama fail, and do not except it. I understand the outrage at the situation, but that outrage is misplaced onto obama, imo.
Jennyjinx
P.S.
The Jenny who doesn’t understand either the concept and right of free speech or how to use Google is not me.
I may not be a regular commenter, but I read here often. And I have no idea why I felt the need to defend myself, except that I somehow feel tainted by someone with name arguing against the First Amendment. It gave me a sad.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: Have you read anything anyone posted? Do you really believe that lawyers should only represent people with whom they agree or those they admire? Rights disappear when no one is willing to defend them. Done with you now.
hamletta
@Jenny: Why do you hate the Constitution? Why do you hate America?
Jennyjinx
Also, FYWP wouldn’t let me edited to include “with my same name“.
hamletta
@Jennyjinx: Don’t worry, dear. It’s really not that hard to tell the difference.
Jenny
@Jennyjinx: Taking money to defend hate speech and hate crimes is never honorable.
You’re welcomed to defend Fred Phelps’ funeral protests all you want. But not even mainstream progressives support that.
Jenny
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes. It’s simple. If I was an attorney, I would never take money to defend a “god hates faggs” funeral protest. Sadly, it sounds like you would.
Corner Stone
@Jenny: God bless you Mako.
Omnes Omnibus
@hamletta: Troll v. not troll. Yeah, that one is pretty easy.
@Jennyjinx: Not too hard to tell the difference.
hamletta
@Jenny: Wrong! Anyone who gives a shit about the First Amendment defends Fred Phelps’ right to be a flaming asshole.
That’s the deal, the bargain we make, in order to have free speech.
Constitutional rights belong to everyone, even scumbags, or they belong to no one. If you can’t understand that, you’re a failure as an American citizen.
Jenny
People should be judged by the clients they work for.
If you’re on Fred Phelps’s payroll, if you’re on the Klan’s payroll, you should be judged harshly. At least as harshly as working for Goldman Sachs.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
Omnes Omnibus
@hamletta: It is either a troll or my sister-in-law.
scav
@Jenny: it wasn’t a complement.
hamletta
Then it’s a good thing you’re not an attorney.
Also, attorneys need strong writing skills, and ignorance of the subjunctive case is quite unbecoming.
MattR
@Jenny: One of the things about being a civil liberties absolutist, which Glenn is, is that you believe that even the most abhorrent people are guaranteed certain rights by our Constitution, one of which is the right to legal representation at trial.
Corner Stone
@scav: Were you planning to serve glazed carrots with her?
hamletta
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, my!
I don’t understand the hard-on for Goldman Sachs attorneys. It’s not smart enough to be one.
Wile E. Quixote
@Jenny:
I can just imagine Jenny’s version of the Miranda warning.
How long before Jenny says that we’re violating her first amendment rights by criticizing her and pointing out how stupid and ignorant she is?
hamletta
@Corner Stone: I would recommend asparagus, to make a better stink when pissing on Voltaire’s grave.
Omnes Omnibus
@hamletta: Sis-in-law is victims rights advocate. She does tough work in very stressful circumstances, and she does it well. She just does not see the need for defense attorneys in domestic violence or rape cases. She personalizes. It is what makes her good at what she does, it is what makes me tell her that she should never consider law school even though she mentions it on occasion.
scav
@Corner Stone: we’ll, they’d match my glazed eyes at considering someone who thinks defending corporations is more important and honorable than defending people. But, in all honesty, I don’t think I’d feed her to anything because of probable toxicity. life is much more interesting when you can’t distinguish your i’s from your a’s, no?
ETA: or your e’s for that matter. Never did get the hang of vowels.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
Under international laws of war, they can be held without trial and only a battlefield commission is required to determine if they are soldiers of the other side. The fifty were deemed that by a recent commission as such. The rest were not, except for the 40 set for trial. You may not like it, nor GG, but it is not illegal and satisfies Habeus .
hamletta
@Wile E. Quixote:
Aw, jeez, didja have to give away the ending?
If we judge the quality of the flounce, can I be East Germany?
Corner Stone
@hamletta: You know, I read somewhere that only a certain percentage of people have the ability to smell the asparagus-flavored urine?
Scientists posit that the smell is changed for everyone but only something like 60% (don’t remember really) have the genetic ability to detect the different odor.
And personally, I make a kick ass roasted asparagus and garlic side dish, usually to go along with my delish bone in ribeye.
Corner Stone
@scav: she’s an obvious plant. And I don’t mean the kind that Cole will be tending under his slow grow lights.
eemom
omg, this thread keeps getting awesomer and awesomer!
Jenny. Please. I hate seeing a good Greenwald-basher go to waste.
It is true that no lawyer has an “imperative” to defend anyone, unless they’ve taken a job — public defender for example — where the job requires them to defend whoever is assigned to them.
But you CANNOT get around the fact that in our legal system, EVERYONE is entitled to representation, even the worst of the worst.
There are certain lawyers and legal organizations, such as the ACLU, who believe that defending principles is more important than NOT defending hateful people, and so they have to defend the Fred Phelpses of the world. Ugly as it may seem, the trade off is worth it, because if we value the right to freedom of speech for ourselves, we can’t deny it to those whose speech is hateful. That is just how “civil rights” works.
There are many things to criticize GG over, but his defense of Hale is a poor choice. No, he didn’t HAVE to do it — but someone did.
Instead……try my point above re his hypocrisy in criticizing Elena Kagan! Now there’s an argument you can sink your teeth into with complete ideological consistency.
hamletta
@Omnes Omnibus: God bless ’er. That’s brutal, unforgiving work. But I can see how you’d be concerned she’d turn out like that godawful woman on HLN.
Omnes Omnibus
@hamletta: Exactly.
Jennyjinx
@Jenny,
I shouldn’t but…
If Fred Phelps in on a public street, as abhorrent as his views are, I would absolutely support his right to speak/holler/make an ass of himself there.
I know, I iz evul. I can live with that.
hamletta
@Corner Stone:
Well, damn! There go all my plans for when Dubya meets his maker!
Do you know how long it takes for an asparagus patch to finally produce?
Neither do I. I’m full of shit. But that was one of the thoughts that got me through those eight horrible years.
Jennyjinx
@eemom,
This.
slag
@Omnes Omnibus: Nicely summarized. I, for one, find GG’s work invaluable. And his shortcomings off-putting.
Mark S.
@eemom:
I get annoyed with a lot of the criticism here of GG, but I admit his attacks on Kagan were a tour de force of idiocy. But, hey, being a libtard concern troll on that issue got him an appearance on This Week with George, Cokie and Bow Tie George, so there’s that.
zuzu (not that one, the other one)
Just FYI: Fred Phelps is represented by his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper. The Phelpses do it all in-house. Fred’s also a lawyer.
Jenny’s a poser troll. “Libs” is the tell. No one but wingnuts call liberals that.
bago
Jesus f-Ing Christ. 200 posts about an infosec issue, and not one timestamp, Crc checksum, i
p addresses, DNS resolution logs, or private and public keys have been posted. Pathetic.
Anne Laurie
@Xenos:
Yeah, well, “Paladin” had already been taken. By the swell guys of Blackwater, I mean, Xe.
Mark S.
@zuzu (not that one, the other one):
Jenny’s probably DougJ. She was probably some conservative girl who broke his heart in middle school. I don’t feel right criticizing other people’s coping mechanisms.
Elvis Elvisberg
@eemom:
I don’t think that’s a fair categorization of Greenwald’s objections to Kagan. As I recall, he wrote that Kagan was an uncertainty, that liberals were relying on the assertions of Democrats who’d palled around with Kagan as to what her views are, and that Diane Wood would have been a better selection.
In this post, he laid how his case against nominating Kagan. He stresses her lack of a public record, and the concerns he has with what record she had. He scarcely mentions (one paragraph, roughly 15th out of roughly 20) her record as solicitor general.
You’re free to disagree with him, of course, or to take issue with what he said, but it’s not fair to say that he based his opposition on what she’d done as solicitor general.
bago
It’s like listening to a bunch of old people bitching about the sound quality of the talkie playing o n some middle aged persons netbook, when nobody even knows what TCP stands for, or what these numbers are doing in their computers.
Uriel
Oh. It’s one of these threads.
Again.
Goddamn it.
Uriel
@Corner Stone:
See, now normally I’m not a big fan of yours, but this is really one of the few interesting things in this thread. Because I’ve been reading about this whole phenomenon for years feeling like I’m the only person in the world who had no idea what every one was getting so riled up about, and wondering if I was the only one who didn’t get it.
Oddly enough, I feel exactly the same way about GG.
So, any details on the roasted asparagus dish? ’cause I am a big fan of asparagus.
Jebediah
@zuzu (not that one, the other one):
A troll worth his or her salt would do a little research before jumping in – lurk a while and get a feel for how to fit in.
If Jenny isn’t a troll, she is an incredible obtuseapotamus, mis-characterizing others’ comments and failing to understand a really important cornerstone of our legal system. If lawyers weren’t duty-bound to zealously represent their clients, especially criminal defendants, even bastardy ones, well, we’d be in quite a pickle.
eemom
@Uriel:
Glenn Greenwald as asparagus-scented urine??
Please, WHEN may I marry you and bear your children?
El Cid
@junebug:
I didn’t “sidestep” shit, you moron.
I disagreed with a specific point you made. You might think it was an off-hand comment while you focused on other issues regarding Greenwald.
It was the stupid as hell point about how ‘he doesn’t live in this country.’ That’s one of the stupidest points anyone could imaginably suggest was relevant to the quality of a person’s argument. Welcome to the internet.
And the point about an argument being an argument still stands.
Glenn Greenwald, or you, or me, or James Hansen, could be a paid agent of Grover Norquist, or of Al Qa’ida, or whatever.
If you make a good argument, it’s a good argument, whether you felt like making such arguments in December of 2005 or 180 years ago or 30 seconds ago. You could be Desmond Tutu or one of the genocidal generals in 1980s Guatemala.
Arguments are things. They consist of words and sometimes numbers and graphs and stuff, and have to do with things like logic and evidence.
Ideally science works like that, though in reality journals don’t. But nobody disagrees with the principle that it’s the argument and evidence, rather than the identity of the person, which should be persuasive.
You might develop a pattern of trust or distrust toward one particular writer or set of writers, but that is absolutely irrelevant when it comes to any particular argument.
Nice way to sidestep the points I actually made, blockhead.
Palantir info
@Xenos:
A quick trip to their web site would be informative, but I’ll put it here for you:
In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a Palantir is a seeing-stone – like Orthanc, used by Saruman.
Palantir has exceptionally gifted engineers, no marketing staff, and very serious clients with three-letter acronyms. Their software is pretty much the bees knees for analysts of all stripes.
Don’t discount them because of the LoTR-sourced name. If anything, their software makes Orthanc look like a garden gazing ball.
You should probably take moment to know what you’re talking about – the company is very stealthy and has some of the best real estate and engineers in Palo Alto.
Mark S.
@Palantir info:
Do you work for them, or are you just a really big fan?
Palantir info
I don’t work for them, but their tech is quite good. I’m an admirer of what can be done with their software – but don’t take my word for it – go test drive the stuff. They’ve put quite a bit of public data on the web, and you can sign up to play with their software and the public data.
Mary
Not that it really matters, but for the sake of accuracy, Bank of America paid back their TARP $$ in full over a year ago.
liberal
@Mary:
TARP was not the only bailout mechanism involved with BoA.
liberal
@El Cid:
Guess your interlocutor has never heard of the fact that argument ad hominem is a fallacy.
SnarkyShark
BOA should have saved its money and hired your “Glenn is Shrill” third way board denizens.
Hippy bashing and labels of “Firebagger” in 10…9…8…..
bjacques
What’s really rich about the BoA’s consultants targeting GG is that they figure if they neutralize him, their problems are over. It’s the same attitude the Egyptian government has toward the rebelling population. Times have changed a bit. Makoto_chan would be all over this; it’s more cyberpunk than cyberpunk!
Anonymous are like a lot of collective entities springing up these days, enabled by social media; they’re just more persistent and focused, to the extent that’s possible in a group with changing memberships or even core(s).
rickstersherpa
@Delia: I no longer have feel so sure that this is stupid as it so obviously appears. The Koch brothers, Fox News, and their minions, who are all growing as rich as Croseus, have managed to convince 45% of the country that Global Warming is a hoax dreamed up by a bunch of academic leftists to get rich on grant money. When that was first trotted out 15 years ago I thought that was so stupid no one could believe it. But apparently their are different kinds of dumb. Since then I went back and started watching the movie “The Sweet Smell of Success” (the late Tony Curtis’s best role), the predeccessor to Madmen on how the game works, and know we are all marks who can be suckers for even a bad con.
Cranky Observer
> Omnes Omnibus
> If I may offer a Cliff notes version here. I think that
> the anti-Greenwald faction here would all say that
> Greenwald has a tendency, when there multiple possible
> explanations for an action by an political actor of whom he
> is critical, to seize on the most negative possible
> explanation even if it is not the most probable.
The potential flaw in that analysis being that the calculation of “what is probable” in our political environment tends to revolve around the Washington DC Media Village, and particularly around the David Broder/Republican/’tough love’ “consensus” – regardless of how accurate or even truthful that “consensus” might be. Any analysis outside the Washington DC media party line is considered “over the top” due to its “improbability”, but that became a circular argument around the time of the Clinton impeachment.
There is also the problem that the members of the DC Media Village don’t use very much of the observed actions of their subjects, preferring to rely on inside sources and tips without analyzing how those sources might be spinning them.
Cranky
Ahasuerus
@J. Michael Neal: Thank you for the apology. As a victim of multiple Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns I was genuinely curious about your original assertion.
And I must confess a somewhat intemperate response on my part; after our initial exchange I put your handle into my pie filter. Had I not gone to review the thread on another machine I would have missed your apology. So, at the risk of quoting Stan (or is it Kyle?), I think I’ve learned something today. And for that, again, my thanks.
joe from Lowell
@SnarkyShark:
This reads like a cry for help.
“Please, somebody, pay attention to me!”
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sounds like she’s already prosecutor material.
lol
@Ahasuerus:
Remember Accountability Now?
It’s the PAC that Hamsher and Greenwald set up to find progressive primary challengers. Except it did nothing but take credit for recruiting Bill Halter and close up shop months before primary season ended last year. Hundreds of thousands of dollars raised and not a single penny ever went to a candidate. No in-kind donations either.
Actually, it did do something – it funneled thousands of dollars every month to various bloggers including Greenwald.
The funny thing is that Greenwald initially claimed he was working for Accountability Now for free. And months later, when challenged on his financial relationship with Hamsher, he claimed in the comments here that he didn’t receive a single penny from Hamsher. That’s technically true – he just received thousands of dollars a month from a PAC that she ran. Totally different.
Like any lawyer, Greenwald rarely outright lies, he just omits contradictory information and heavily slants the information he does present.
When challenged, he invariably resorts to ad hominem attacks, exposing him as a whiny little bitch who can’t take what he dishes out. So in other words, he’s like any other blogger in the Professional Left.
scot
Well, this thread made for an amusing morning read. Wankers and their wankery. Carry on.
chopper
man, this is one of the best glennbot vs obot threads ever.
Michael
What I found most irritating (yet guffaw inspiring at the same time) was the notion that name Glenn Greenwald became a “household word” because of his blogging about the conditions of Manning’s confinement.
I deal with a lot of people, and believe me, most people don’t know about or care about the names Manning or Greenwald.
Michael
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Untrue. I dislike him because he is a legend in his own mind and, despite all his big talk (which we all know is cheap), he’s not actually accomplished anything.
Sure, he lost some cases and then ran like a scalded dog to blogworld where he flails about aimlessly at causes which he can’t help but fuck up.
lol
@Michael:
Hardly a Greenwald specific trait. Being more interested in attention-whoring than working for actual change is a prerequisite for membership in the Professional Left.
joe from Lowell
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
This comment doesn’t tell me anything whatsoever about people who don’t like Glenn Greenwald, or their motivations.
It does, however, tell me a great deal about those who promote and defend Greenwald.
Ahasuerus
@lol:
I do now. Thank you for the reminder. And thanks also to those of you who have mentioned the Elena Kagan nomination episode.
Allan
@joe from Lowell: Isn’t it interesting how the multiple online identities who relentlessly hype Glenn Greenwald as the perfect and brilliant exposer of how everyone else in the world is corrupt and has hidden agendas and can’t be trusted, in turn trust everything Glenn writes uncritically, and never ask themselves why, for example, Glenn can write in one post that Obama “cashed in” by earning money from his bestselling books, while in the next post he can hype his own upcoming book on the treatment of prisoners, which you absolutely must rush out and buy because it will contain an extended chapter on Bradley Manning?
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: a prosecutor still needs to be able to see the defense side of the case in order to prepare to counter it. Sis-in-law can’t do that. Like I said, this characteristic makes her extraordinarily good at what she does; it would, however, be debilitating in a legal career.
Tone in DC
I have to wonder at this point… Who do these folks hate more? Maybe they have a top 10 of the Truly Despicable.
1. GG
2. Jane Hamsher
3. Marcy Wheeler
4. Markos (or just Kos)
5. Olbermann
6. Dylan Ratigan
7. Rachel Maddow
8. Arianna Huffington
9. Josh Marshall
10. Any other non-right wing blogger I may have left out
Wile E. Quixote
@Palantir Shill:
From the Wikipedia entry.
I just love how Libertarian Peter Thiel had no qualms about accepting venture funding from the CIA to develop a product that is used largely by government agencies with a history of breaking the law and spying on US citizens. What an asshole.
Also who gives a shit about Palantir’s real estate in Palo Alto? Apple Computer and Hewlett Packard were both started in garages and back in the 1990s there were lots of dot-bombs in San Francisco and Seattle who had absolutely awesome real-estate, too bad that they didn’t have absolutely awesome products.
El Cid
@liberal: Most people, I think, only consider the ‘negative’ appearance of ad hominem arguments.
Meaning, it seems equivalent to an insult or immaturity, etc.
I don’t think that often I hear people link that up with the underlying point — it’s the argument and evidence, not the person presenting it.
Kathy in St. Louis
I’m sorry, I didn’t get to the read the entire excerpt above. I got as far as, “Don’t you know that Glenn is a journalist?” and had some sort of mild stroke over that line. I am now typing with one good hand.
zuzu (not that one, the other one)
@El Cid:
Especially stupid given the reason he doesn’t live in this country.
Dan L.
Michael – February 10, 2011 | 10:12 am · Link
lol – February 10, 2011 | 10:31 am · Link
I’m curious what you two lords of the universe have accomplished.
Though I’ll give lol full credit for the accountability now thing, which I have to look into. Sounds like it could make junebug slightly more credible.
Tip for junebug: making the same assertion ad nauseum without providing evidence causes people not to take you seriously. Unfortunately, it also causes people not to take the assertion seriously even if it is valid. Check out 307 to see someone doing a credible GG take down.
eemom: To the extent that this thread has made me question GG’s motives or methods, it was not because of you. You just sound like a broken record. This record.