I got off him quite some time back, when he was tying himself in knots trying to minimize/discredit the very considerable evidence of Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 election. Along with a lot of other excuses he made for Putin’s regime. He doesn’t appreciate the difference between a flawed democracy (U.S.) and a corrupt authoritarian kleptocracy (modern Russia). Ok, both are bad in some ways. Which is worse, as a government? For example, which one is actually murdering journalists (you would think, as a journalist, he’d be a bit concerned about that)?
10 Likes
If I might be so bold, I would suggest your refusal to “agreed” with my argument on basis of nomenclature is indeed a nothing burger itself.
5 Likes
I saw all of that, but so what? It was mostly Fox News. And your examples aren’t of critical journalism, just typical horse race bullshit and GOP talkingpoints. Obama’s arrogance? Really? That’s some Fox News shit right there.
2 Likes
typical quote–“But Mr. Greenwald was in Brazil and when he heard about the document, he was not interested. He told me that he considered its claims about Russian hacking during the 2016 race “wildly overblown” . . .”
good quote–“Glenn’s idea of The Intercept was a chorus of Glenns, people who agree with Glenn,” Hodge said. “That was his vision, and that was why he became increasingly frustrated with the newsroom.”
8 Likes
It’s legitimately sad to see when a smart person like Greenwald can’t emotionally get past his scapegoats, and his certainties that both sides must be equally bad. And perhaps most to their point: past his ego enough to admit that he may have been wrong in the past, and may be wrong right now, based on the evidence.
I think that the many ways that Trump and his GOP have been clearly, awfully, verifiably worse than Hillary Clinton and the modern Democrats has been very hard for Greenwald to take. His whole personal and professional position and station was based on criticizing the Democrats as equally bad and possibly even worse.
The whole piece Greenwald wanted to submit was based on being at best half of the way to that awareness. He does list many valid reasons that any supposition about Hunter Biden is not likely to be grounded in reality. He just doesn’t reason from those reasons - he mainly includes them in order to try and insulate his following opinions from criticism.
The notion that he is criticizing other news outlets for looking at things critically, entirely seems to escape him. That would also require him examining his position with fuller self-awareness, which is likely why that also falls into his blind spot.
It’s like the sort of apology that includes “…but” in it. It’s not really an apology. It’s just a reasserting of the same excuse, just with an attempted disclaimer at the front.
6 Likes
Concurring in part, dissenting in part, and concurring in the judgment: I agree with the remainder of your comment entirely. But, frankly, I think Biden is pretty swell AND, if he gets elected and gets majorities in both houses, is likely to achieve significantly more progressive results than more progressive candidates with less practical executive-branch experience (coughBERNIEcough) would have achieved.
He wasn’t my first, second, or third choice for a nominee in the Democratic cattle-call, but he’s deeply decent and willing to admit when he’s wrong. None of that means we shouldn’t hold his feet to the fire to get the results we want, but the Biden I’ve seen since the end of the primary is not a Biden I voted reluctantly for, but a Biden I feel entirely comfortable giving my full-bore support.
7 Likes
I tend to not take people seriously when they use the same vapid terminology over and over.
But I’m a curmudgeon, so do whatever you want. Just don’t expect me to take your views seriously if you speak like a 13 year old.
It’s more of a repeating the same line as media to me that gets me to turn off, honestly. It suggests people can do no more than parrot the same bylines every other talking head is repeating at the moment. For me, it leads me to ignore the person when I can’t separate their arguments on their own merit from popular phrases.
4 Likes
Were you looking for them? This popped up FIRST in my Google search for “Obama’s drone program.” Though, to be sure, it’s from that notorious right-wing rag, The Atlantic.
14 Likes
I have very fond memories of Greenwald when Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez would interview him on Democracy Now. These journalist so often conduct brilliant interviews so I am bummed but not shocked that on his own writing opinions he seems to have gotten lost in the weeds. I hope he can go back to work on something new, hopefully, with people who can keep him on track.
1 Like
unfortunately, it was peter maas’s efforts to try to do that that caused him to flounce screaming “censorship!”
13 Likes
CNN (of all people) had pretty scathing coverage of the extrajudicial drone executions of the Al-Awlakis under Obama, and The Atlantic had a whole series criticizing the use of drone strikes during his term.
11 Likes
Came here to say this and glad someone else did in the first post.
3 Likes
Am I the only one who saw this:
…and immediately couldn’t get this out of their head:
5 Likes
You seem unfamiliar with Glenn Greenwald’s specific body of work. This is not an isolated incident.
Wonkette is pretty tongue-in-cheek, but their assessment is spot-on here:
13 Likes
A useful idiot. It’s all about incentives. He’s so aware of how much attention he’ll get from a Biden attack article that he can’t see anything else. I don’t think he’s even necessarily alt-right even though he is of course serving their interests.
4 Likes
Greenwald sound deplorable to me
2 Likes
His early career was supporting white supremecists, so, no… not really.
1 Like
He’s not an idiot, so I’m assuming it’s on purpose with his eyes open.
2 Likes
To be fair, he was the lawyer defending free speech rights, which in one case was some white supremecists. As he put it at the time: “to me, it’s a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it not when it’s easy … not when it supports your position, not when it protects people you like, but when it defends and protects people that you hate”
Greenwald may be a lot of things, but I don’t think he’s really a fascist, and certainly not a white supremecist. A contrarian a-hole, to be sure, but not a nazi. Mostly he seems to me to be some kind of infinite purity tester, raging all the harder at people as they get closer and closer but yet still fail to meet his expectations. He pretty consistently goes after his presumed allies the hardest.
8 Likes
Fair enough, but I judge him by his actions, and his actions don’t look good.
I think we all kind of overlooked a lot of his behavior because of Snowden, but at this point I think what’s going on is pretty obvious.
2 Likes
