Glenn Greenwald
Twice in the past month, my private communications have been splashed about the internet. That such a thing would happen is unfortunate, and dishonorable, but sadly inevitable, I suppose. I ignored the first case, in which a rather pathetic woman acolyte of Greenwald's published a hyperbolic account of a conversation I had with her at a beach picnic on Cape Cod. Now, Greenwald himself has published private emails of mine that were part of a conversation taking place on a list-serve. In one of those emails, I say that Greenwald "cares not a whit for America's national security."
I'd like to quote here from a subsequent email on that thread, which Greenwald hasn't published, in which I explain why I have such strong feelings about Greenwald:
For the past several years, Greenwald has conducted a persistent, malicious campaign to distort who I am and where I stand. He is a mean-spirited, graceless bully. During that time, I have never seen him write a positive sentence about the US military, which has transformed itself dramatically for the better since Rumsfeld's departure (indeed, he ridiculed me when I reported that the situation in Anbar Province was turning around in 2007). I have never seen him acknowledge that the work of the clandestine service—performed disgracefully by the CIA during the early Bush years—is an absolute necessity in a world where terrorists have the capability to attack us at any time, in almost any place. Nor have I seen [him] acknowledge that such a threat exists, nor make a single positive suggestion about how to confront that threat in ways that might conform to his views. Therefore, I have seen no evidence that he cares one whit about the national security of the United States. It is not hyperbole, it is a fact.
I am not a religious reader of Greenwald--he does go on, and on--and it's possible that I missed extensive posts in which he praises the Armed Forces or makes positive suggestions about how to track possible communications between terrorists abroad and their confederates here. But I sort of doubt that. What I have seen from him, ad nauseum, are intemperate attacks in which he questions the character of--no, it's worse than that: he slimes--anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him.
I agree with Greenwald on some things, and appreciate his insights on others. But he is a thoroughly dishonorable person--as he proved by releasing my private emails--and, when it comes to his oft-trumpeted belief in the right to privacy, a stone hypocrite as well.
-
26
The reading today is from the Book of Klein, chapter 73, beginning at the 13th verse:
.
And there were those who muttered against Klein, for there was discontent in the Land of Bafflegab, and the Centrists were discomforted. And there arose a mighty man of valor, that was named Greenwald. And around him were acolytes, many and pathetic, and they did say many unkind things, even unto publishing alarmingly accurate reports of things said at picnics, which did mightily enrage Klein, so that the blood rushed to his head and the steam out of his ears. And Klein took up his word-processor to smite them. Vast was the word-processor, of sounding brass and luminous silicon, and the length of it was seven bull-sh*ts, and the width of it was three. And the prophet Hoekstra blessed Klein and anointed him with his own manly juicings, and Klein went forth to battle. And as he issued from the Gate of Broder, through which a camel may not fit, the face of Klein was terrible, and his chariots numberless as the secret WMD sites of Iraq. And Klein came down unto the Plain of Fisa, and confronted Greenwald, who was a stripling youth, armed only with a sling.....-
26.1
Well done.
-
26.2
Genius!
-
-
27
This post is just weird. Greenwald is focussed and prolific -- maybe wordy, but he is not meanspirited. And to attack his patriotism is just the kind of jingoistic claptrap that ends in, well, lawlessness, torture, and tyrany. After all, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundral....
To only slightly alter a quote (by changing the name) from one of my favorite films, "People Will Talk:"
"[Joe Kline], you are a little man. It is not that you're short. You're little -- in the mind and the heart. Tonight you tried to make a man little whose boots you couldn't touch if you stood on tiptoe on top of the highest mountain of the world. And as it turned out, you are even littler than you were before."
Perhaps this is the real problem. Your complaints look so small because they are coming from a small frightened place where you question your own worth.
-
27.1
You win the thread. We're done here.
-
27.2
That said it all. For many of us. Thanks
-
-
28
Joe, I just saw the posts with the emails. You were responding with your Time email account? I'm sorry, but most of us 9-5ers know that you do anything with your work email, there are limits to your expectation of privacy. Considering you more often than not work from a home network, logging in with a private email account would make a big difference in your argument. Instead, this post seems petty and childish.
As to the nature of the content and the points you make, honestly, I can't judge, but if the basis of the post is that you expected your correspondence to be private, next time don't publicize your identity (your work email) so readily.
-
29
I love this line in Joe's little temper tantrum:
"he questions the character of--no, it's worse than that: he slimes--anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him."
It comes right after Joe accuses Glenn of hating the military.
I guess self-awareness is not Joe's thing.
-
30
I ignored the first case, in which a rather pathetic woman acolyte of Greenwald's published a hyperbolic account of a conversation I had with her at a beach picnic on Cape Cod.
.
Translation: I pretended not to notice, but my black heart seethed with hatred and malice. And yes, she basically told the truth. Damn her!
.
Now, Greenwald himself has published private emails of mine that were part of a conversation taking place on a list-serve.
.
Translation: I was quite happy to help Bush spy on ordinary Americans and damage the civil liberties of the country, but that's so obviously different from my slandering Glenn Greenwald and being caught doing it.
.
For the past several years, Greenwald has conducted a persistent, malicious campaign to distort who I am and where I stand. He is a mean-spirited, graceless bully.
.
Translation: how dare the little bast*rd provide accurate and precise fiskings of my tainted and politically corrupt water-carrying for the GOP and the Blue Dogs?
.
It is not hyperbole, it is a fact.
.
Translation: I really can't understand why people refer to Pinnochio's Pizza as Klein Food.
.
I am not a religious reader of Greenwald--he does go on, and on--and it's possible that I missed extensive posts in which he praises the Armed Forces or makes positive suggestions about how to track possible communications between terrorists abroad and their confederates here.
.
Translation: actually reading and analyzing is such a chore. I'll just make it up as I go along. If the truth suffers, well, I am a journalist, what did you expect?
.
But I sort of doubt that. What I have seen from him, ad nauseum, are intemperate attacks in which he questions the character of--no, it's worse than that: he slimes--anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him.
.
Translation: no, I don't read Greenwald 24/7. I just google my own name and his together every hour on the hour. -
31
You've got nothing on Greenwald, Joe. He doesn't sufficiently praise the military? What a buffoonish non sequitur! He doesn't "distort" where you stand he exposes it.
-
32
[...] Posted in Media at 1:49 pm by LeisureGuy Read the post and then read the comments. [...]
-
33
Joe, I hope I never have to read another blog post from you where you complain about what another blogger did or said about you. This is not your personal soapbox. You are expected to contribute to national policy discussions, not disgust your readership with petty personal concerns. And yes, I do mean petty. No one but you gives a sh*t.
-
34
[...] Joe Klein responds: Twice in the past month, my private communications have been splashed about the internet. [...]
-
35
Time.com, 2:20 p.m.:
Scherer's Swampland posts on the state of journalism had Klein unusually distressed.
"Not the right time to be looking for a new job," mused Klein, as he reflected on the thinning ranks of his profession. "Or the right age."
Klein closed his office door, pulled open his desk drawer and started to reach for his small, pre-packed pipe. Yes, incredibly, the same one from the McGovern campaign.
But the prospect of a smooth hit just wasn't comforting him at the moment. He was agitated and needed to blow off some steam. He briefly contemplated a trip to the gym, but his knee was acting up on him again.
No, what Klein needed was to lay down a good, old-fashioned ass-kicking on one of these damned bloggers that had been plaguing him of late. Atrios? No, Greenwald.
That bastard had actually attacked him for a very, very private conversation that he had had with some crazy woman at a summer BBQ. Who invades people's lives like that?
"Well, I did reprint the name and email of that Republican loon the other day," remembered Klein, before dismissing the thought. "Nobody will put two and two together. These bloggers couldn't research their own birthdays."
Yes, the post was coming together. Glenn Greenwald, Invader of Privacy. How ironic!
Klein needed one more data point to draw a pattern. The listserv emails. That should do it.
Klein closed the drawer, turned to the computer, and began to type.
"Twice in the past month, my private communications have been splashed about the internet..."
-
36
Joe, I'm mostly one of your defenders here, but there's nothing hypocritical in publishing received correspondence, and decrying a third party spying on similar correspondence.
Surely you can see the difference between me publishing a letter that you sent to me (were you to so honor me), and the government intercepting it, holding the sealed letter over a pot of boiling water, opening it, reading it secretly, then re-sealing it and sending it along so that sender and receiver are both unaware that someone else has read it.
-
37
Another part of this screed that annoys me:
"Twice in the past month, my private communications have been splashed about the internet"Can someone who pursues celebrity-pundit status as aggressively as Joe Klein does complain if his (semi-) private declamations on politics are given somewhat greater publicity than he intended?
-
38
I love how Joe Klein bringing the D-baggery in front of an entire picnic full of people is somehow a personal communication.
-
39
I thought accusing those with whom one disagrees of hating our troops went out of style during the second half of the Bush administration.
Joe, I find your whole email to be illogical. Greenwald writes about civil liberties. It does not follow that he ought to make off-topic statements about how the military and CIA are wonderful, or "acknowledge" some particular, specific point you've made up today. What's the point of that, other than to preemptively ward off poorly-reasoned criticism from other pundits? And why should he devote time to making suggestions as to how the clandestine service should operate? That's not his area of expertise. Perhaps the military and CIA are more insulted by those who aren't experts and yet insist on acting like they're capable of giving serious strategic advice.
>> Therefore, I have seen no evidence that he cares one whit about the national security of the United States. It is not hyperbole, it is a fact.>>
Good grief, do you even know what a fact is?!
-
39.1
He clearly doesn't know what an anaphor is.
-
39.2
jmw, I also don't know what "anaphor" means. I looked up the definition: "anaphor - a word (such as a pronoun) used to avoid repetition; the referent of an anaphor is determined by its antecedent". I admit I am dimwitted but I don't get what you mean.
Or could it be that you meant "anaphora" as in "anaphora - repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses"?
Which is it?
Anyway, thanks for the (un-)intended lesson.
-
-
40
Amazing revision of history from Klein. For 8 years I recall Klein bashing anything and everything the US Military and CIA did. Now he wants us to think he is serious about National Security? Klein should learn from his Israeli cousins. Only 4% of Israelis think Obama is pro Israel. Klein and Greenwald are both secular Bolsheviks not real Jews.
-
41
I find these secret societies that Klein belongs to be dangerous. I am sure these radical left wing Bolsheviks plot the destruction of the USA each day and coordinate their articles.
-
42
, in his November 13, 2007, blog posting, Klein wrote this:
The war in Iraq has been a disaster, the stupidest foreign policy decision ever made by an American President.
Why is Iraq with its 4000 American Dead worse than JFKs Vietnam with 58,000 dead? let me guess? Cause Bush is GOP? Joe is dishonest.
-
42.1
Well one could argue that the Conventional Wisdown sided with intervention in Vietnam and the experience of Vietnam should have informed the trumped up (and trumpeting) of the Iraq War.
Or one could argue that, by my math, there had been less than 401 American deaths (the number includes deaths during the Eisenhower administration as well as Johnson before escalation) in Vietnam under JFK, not 50,000 by your math. Most of the deaths occurred during his successor's escalation (35,751). The remainder (20,863) occurred during Nixon's.
Last I checked, Nixon and Eisenhower were Republicans. Since both parties own the Vietnam War, because that war was part of a larger Cold War, it is not as easy to second guess the decision, even though, with hindsight, it clearly was a wrong one.
I find it also a tad ironic that you choose to be so sensitive to the 50,000 american deaths (in Vietnam) and the 4,000 in Iraq without even a nod to the (over) 3 million Vietnamese deaths and 1.1 million (and counting) Iraqi deaths.
I guess our lives are worth more and f--k the rest, huh?
-
-
43
[...] Joe Klein on why Glenn Greenwald is not a serious person: [...]
-
44
How shall I begin?
There have already been some great posts, but I would like to extend their arguments.
What is it that they say about the height of hypocrisy? Joe, you know better than this. In fact, I am sure that you have used that old kettle and black line re: the teapot.
And speaking of tea-bagging, this post puts you darn close to setting up shop.....your paranoia is paramount to being a birther on patriotism. Let's just say that you should have quit before you wrote "Twice...."
Goodnight and goodluck.
-
45
Ignore the dittoheads. Greenwald is a tremendously smart man, but I've been reading him faithfully, and I can't remember a single instance of acknowledging good-faith points of view other than his. He seems incapable of even a basic understanding of disagreements others could have. Even though I don't have many disagreements, just the tone is enough to make any reasonable individual trying to understand both sides a little ill. His tone is right for the torture allegations, pretty much nothing else.
-
45.1
What's he supposed to do, pretend to agree with someone? Please.
(And since he's started doing interviews with people he's disagreeing with, you can always listen to those. He's quite civil in those, even as he makes his point.)
-
45.2
He's supposed to make even a cursory attempt to understand them. Or, heavens to betsy, accept them as good faith disagreements, rather than some grotesque malformation in that person's moral character. But forget that, I'm just a fetid, rotting corporate whore.
-
-
46
A bit testy, Joe? There are more important issues in the world to write about than your feelings about Greenwald. (Dishonorable, really?)
.
Besides, the people who actually read your posts/columns know that Greenwald's critique of your work is usually spot on!! I find his speaking truth to power quite refreshing. -
47
[...] the Greenwald “acolyte” Joe Klein mocked was longtime Balloon-Juice commenter aimai of No More Mister Nice Guy Blog (via [...]
-
48
[...] Joe Klein may have to challenge Glenn Greenwald to fisticuffs. [...]
-
49
that is one of the biggest problems with the internet- people can say anything anonymously with no recourse
there is a saying "honor among thieves" so sorry but I do think that private emails should NOT be posted without the writer's permission -- unless there is physical jeopardy or harm potentially involved
Joe Klein is a great asset to the media - this is not kissing up this is a fact -
Did you see him on Reliable Sources last weekend? He was the ONLY one with a sense of decency-
and sorry call me Pollyanna - but decency and trust have to have SOME place in this culture or we are all really doomed
So all the brave anonymous mean spirited people - come out of the closet -
allison
-
49.1
Maybe you missed the title of this post but let me assure you that Glenn Greenwald is not at all an "anonymous blogger". And don't forget that Joke was a proponent of extending FISA and allowing the NSA to spy on Americans. You can admire Joke all you want, to each their own. But you have to at least have your facts and your history straight before you try to defend him.
-
49.2
You first, awb75, or if that is your real name, my apologies. Why is it OK for the powerful to protect themselves by using anonymity (as news sources) and not the weak? Our country was founded in no small part through anonymous dissent.
-
49.3
You also missed the part where the e-mail was not private. It was posted to hundreds of fellow journalists (or JOURNO-LISTs) on a mailing list server and contained malicious slander of its subject, who subsequently posted its content.
-
-
50
Wow - not your finest hour, Joe. How can you argue that someone deserves scorn for not saying something, and on top of that admit that you hadn't even done the research to make such an illogical claim. I don't recall you blogging about Union army, so I'm able to claim that you supported the Confederacy? Likewise, I don't recall you blogging about those who died at Pearl Harbor, so I'm able to claim that you supported the Japanese? Totally grammar school junk, not even mentioning the ad hominem. You've gone down quite a few notches.
- TIME The scoop on Google Buzz from @techland | http://su.pr/1zDlZ6 - 1 hour ago
- TIME Are the bible stories true? Evidence from archaeology | http://su.pr/2ekoPX - 2 hours ago
- TIME Why is NBC pretending Conan never existed? | http://su.pr/4Pbjbh - 3 hours ago
Most Popular »
- Undercover Boss Is Phony and Manipulative. But Don't Hold That Against It.
- NBC: There Was Never a Conan O'Brien
- NH Poll: Dems Face A Thumpin'
- Paul Ryan Won't Run For Prez In 2012
- Barack Obama: Then vs. Now
- Today's Health Care Checkup - GOP Plans Under the Spotlight
- Gibbs Mocks Palin, Tea Party Convention
- CO Gov Poll: Hickenlooper +4
- Do You Spend Less than $2,000 Annually on Internet, TV, Cell Phone Service, and Video Games?
- Love At First Byte: Your Nerdy Valentine's Day Guide
- Asian Carp Battle: Foreign Fish Threaten Great Lakes
- Is the Bible Fact or Fiction? Archaeology's Discoveries
- Spain's Troubled Economy: Fears Over Euro Zone Outlook
- Kennewick Man, Archaeology Find: Who Discovered America?
- Al-Qaeda, Yemen, Wedding: Unlucky Name, Celebration
- Tea-Party Convention: Lessons on Palin and the Movement
- Venezuela: Chavez Protests at Ball Game Over Electricity
- Jim Frederick, Black Hearts in Iraq's Triangle of Death
- Marja: Operation Moshtarak Tests Obama's Afghan War Plan
- Why China Needs The U.S. -- And Vice Versa
Quotes of the Day »
RSS