Making Things Up
The odious Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard has written an item claiming that I made up the fact that Avigdor Lieberman, the extremist anti-Arab bigot who sadly serves as Israel's Foreign Minister, walked out of meetings with George Mitchell when the topic of East Jerusalem was raised. My sources for the item are several high-ranking American officials, with intimate knowledge of the situation; I can't reveal their identities for obvious reasons. I stand by the story.
Furthermore, I continue to believe that Israel's policy of illegally colonizing areas of East Jerusalem, areas that should someday constitute the capital of a Palestinian state existing alongside Israel, is a detriment to peace--and the immediate reason why peace talks are not taking place now.
Goldfarb is right that I was overly optimistic about Gidon Gilad Shalit's release last summer, taking a report in an Egyptian newspaper as fact. It is outrage that Shalit continues to be held by Hamas, a sign that Hamas--like the Likud party--really doesn't want to see a two-state solution. I hope he is released soon.
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1
No but you did make up that Howard Dean only opposes the current health care bill for money rather than for a principle that you just happen to disagree with.
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1.1
Tread softly Destor--interfering with Joe Klein's righteous work (i.e. personal pique) involves censorial risk.
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2
You forgot Goldfarb lying this week about the WH threatening an Air Force base closure in Nebraska to get Ben Nelson to play ball. Nelson says it is untrue.
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The neo-cons tacitly endorse lying as a means to an end as I am sure you are well aware of as a fact. -
3
Trifecta, if it's not true then why are 20 GOP Sens calling for an investigation without the Dems calling their bluff. The little stunt seems par for the course for a slime like Rahm Emanuel. Remember Rahm sat on the Foley crap, and he lied through his teeth about what the Bush Administration left to the Obama Administration on Afghanistan?
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Destor23, you are right. Dean doesn't seem to be the type of guy who would be keen on forcing Americans to fork over their money to corporate interests. I'd prefer (from an ideological standpoint) single payer to this "worst of both worlds" nonsense--government control and juiced in corporate interests.-
3.1
spob, that's not how base closures even work, and even the guy who's calling for an investigation admits that he doesn't think anything happened.
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http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_12/021499.php
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It's not worth investigating, any more than it's worth investigating whether Glenn Beck murdered a young girl in 1990. It's a transparently stupid lie, an investigation would be a waste of time.
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http://www.metafilter.com/85677/Why-wont-Glenn-Beck-deny-these-allegations
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If anything like this had actually happened, in a parallel universe where it is actually possible, a reporter would have broken the story. Goldfarb isn't a reporter, he's a propagandist. "Making things up" is what he does. That's why he fit in so well in the McCain-Palin campaign.
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4
"Making Things Up"?
This from the same whack job fantasist, loon and conspiracy theorist Joe Klein who alleged (falsely and with the predictable absence of ANY evidence) that Donald Rumsfeld declared that Lt. General David McKiernan would never take command of another unit because, according to Klein's ludicrous fantasy, McKiernan took a nap in the presence of Rumsfeld. BTW, like the case here, Klein's alleged, so-called, self-described "sources" are no where to be found.
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5
Michael Goldfarb: (The framers of the Constitution) sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war. So no, the Constitution does not put Congress on an equal footing with the executive in matters of national security.
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Trifecta-
Irving Kristol (the godfather of Neoconservatism): There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.
AKA the Noble Lie, Leo Strauss.
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No surprise here. BTW, Goldfarb was McCain's deputy of communications, jus' sayin... -
6
It doesn't really matter if it was made up, although I doubt that such a charge is true. What is undeniably true is that Lieberman is an unmitigated bigot and destructive force for peace. I speak of both the U.S. Senator for Israel and the Foreign Minister for Israel.
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7
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/joe_klein_caught_making_stuff_1.asp
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Goldfarb involves Scherer in the food fight. Lol. -
8
Joe Klein:
My sources for the item are several high-ranking American officials, with intimate knowledge of the situation; I can't reveal their identities for obvious reasons.
If you can't reveal people's names because they're afraid of being called liars in public, don't you think that they might be liars?
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How is anybody supposed to know for themselves, without taking your sole word for it --as if you were some kind of prophet handing down information on stone tablets from the mountain-- that these people are credible?
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Don't you think that this whole "nobody will go on record" thing has gotten way out of hand?-
8.1
You beat me by mere seconds.
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8.2
Joe:
Calling someone names then using sources you can't name is a pathetic defense Joe but typical for you.
It boils down to trust me he's a lair. Your record is less than spotless.
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9
My sources for the item are several high-ranking American officials, with intimate knowledge of the situation; I can't reveal their identities for obvious
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What are those obvious reasons?
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How do we know you're not making that part up, too?-
9.1
That sources won't talk to him in the future if he sticks their names next to a story they didn't want to go on the record with. That's the obvious reason. And yes, it is obvious.
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Honestly folks, this is how journalism works. The alternative is for people to hear absolutely nothing that people can't say on the record. If you don't trust the writer, don't read the work.
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In this case it seems the contradicting story also relies on unnamed sources, making the charge that Klein was "making things up" particularly weird; the contradicting source is exactly as unverifiable as the original. So unfortunately, all we as readers can know, is that somebody claims the Israeli Foreign Minister is walking out on a US envoy, and somebody else denies said claim. We do also know for a fact that Israel has repeatedly refused to cease their offending actions in East Jerusalem. So it seems to me that readers looking to understand the tone of the peace talks have more than enough evidence to work with here, despite our lack of concrete evidence regarding the body language and behavior of the Israeli Foreign Minister.
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9.2
Honestly folks, this is how journalism works.
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...Or how it doesn't.
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The alternative is for people to hear absolutely nothing that people can't say on the record.
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Perhaps that might clear up some of the misinformation that seems to be plaguing journalism...and the American electorate.
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If you don't trust the writer, don't read the work.
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That strategy empowers journalists, the entities that publish them, and the sources that wish to control information at the expense of the rest of us. If that's the best that supposed purveyors of empirical fact can do --"trust us"-- then it's best to go back to the drawing board on journalism. Fortunately for everyone but them, that's happening sooner rather than later.
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We don't really care "how journalism works" anymore. Judith Miller's WMD sources devalued that currency years ago. Transparency is of much higher value to engaged news consumers than hearing "something from someone" these days.
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Faulting people who demand better product from an industry that's driven itself into the ground on the basis of "that's just how it is" is pretty absurd. -
9.3
That sources won't talk to him in the future if he sticks their names next to a story they didn't want to go on the record with. That's the obvious reason. And yes, it is obvious.
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So how am I wrong to want Klein or any other journalist who uses anonymity for this reason to spell it out?
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I want them to say, "I granted my sources anonymity because I crave access to government sources and they are too uncomfortable with having to go on record with anything."
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I want them to say that
every
single
time.
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If you don't trust the writer, don't read the work.
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That's fine, except these pundits and journalists are constantly broadcasting how trustworthy they are.
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In this particular instance, Avigdor is a dick and I can easily see him walking out of meetings. But what happens when Klein starts quoting anonymous Pentagon figures about how we need to go fight Iran right now? -
9.4
If you can't report if you can't name the "unnamed sources", wouldn't that put FAUX news out of business.
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10
Joke Line, the Jedi Master of self-pity, strikes again.
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Don't take this the wrong way, but I can't believe y'all are still bothering with this stuff. -
11
"odious Michael Goldfarb"
"the Senator from Blagojevich, Roland Burris"
"greedy extremists."
"Grow up"
"assorted nonsense from left-bloggers in high dudgeon, and assorted dilatory narcissism from the likes of Ben Nelson and Roland Burris"
That's how Joe has described people with whom he has disagreed in just the last two days.
Oh he also wrote this -
"It may be time for us to review our policy on commenting, which more than a few of our readers find appallingly injudicious."-
11.1
I like "the digital Left" from his other blog.
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12
First of all, who is "Gidon" Shalit? Does he mean Gilad Shalit?
Second, comparing Hamas to Likud requires an special cocktail of moral blindness and anti-Semitism.-
12.1
smgxxx~
Actually, to make such an accusation as anti-Semitism on the grounds that someone dared to equate Hamas with the Israeli terrorist party, Likud, requires a special cocktail of blind ingorance and rabid propaganda.
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Chiefly, your use of propaganda, i.e. the strategem of tieing Israeli to Jew, government to people nonsense, is abhorrent. One can, and should, criticize the immoral, racist, and violent Israeli government as frequently as possible without ever holding a prejudice against Jewish people.
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Peripherally, you display a gross misunderstanding of history with your anti-Semitism comments. Arabs are a semitic people, so Israel is, in fact, the world's most prominent anti-Semitic society. Secondly, most Israeli Jews are not semitic people, as they do not trace their lineage to the semitic tribes of ancient Israel, but rather the Kazars, converts to Judaism in the Middle Ages, who immigrated to Europe, formed the majority of Euopean Jewry during WWII, and then "returned" to Israel.
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13
"I can't reveal their identities for obvious reasons. I stand by the story."
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Give it a rest, Joe Klein. "I can't reveal their identities" is the same as saying "I made it all up with ficticious sources just so I can justify my opininons".
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Anything "off the record" is nothing more than hearsay, and of no consequence to any discussion.
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I could say you are really a female, Joe Klein, because my "sources said so". But, one only needs to look at a picture of your ugly mug to determine any female couldn't be that damn ugly. That alone discredits my so-called "sources". -
14
Is it just me or do half of Joe Klein's posts stem from other journalists saying something that he doesn't like?
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15
Exiled at Home is a great example of the kind of crackpot who shares Joe Klein's irrational antipathy towards Israel. The vast majority of Americans, be they Republicans, Democrats, liberals or conservatives, can distinguish between a democratic, centrist and well-established political party like Likud and the primitive, Islamic fascist organization known as Hamas.
Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jews. Exiled favors the barbaric, misogynistic, homophobic, superstitious Arab world to any liberal democracy. If you don't like to be labeled anti-Semitic, Exiled, how about Jew-hater?
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