Discussion: Greenwald Rips New York Times Reviewer Who Suggested Journalists Should Be Prosecuted

The bigger question is who would ever buy a book he wrote?

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Itā€™s shocking to me the level of animosity towards Greenwald on this thread.

Putting aside for the moment the question of the legality or ethics of Greenwaldā€™s release of NSA secrets, is there ANYONE that can argue that heā€™s wrong about the obsequious, American press?

Likewise, can anyone argue that the appointment by Paul of a reviewer with an established track record of deferring to the government predetermined the outcome of the review?

Greenwald is not being ā€œthin-skinnedā€ to point out both these issues, heā€™s doing us a service, just as he did, in my opinion, when he helped reveal the systematic violations of our Constitution by both the Bush and Obama Administrations and a pattern of full-frontal lies to hide it.

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You guys have got to be kidding me defending Kinsey and his ilk on this subject. Iā€™m not a big fan of Greenwald or his style of bludgeoning people over the head with cherry picked quotes or his self-aggrandizement, but give me a break. Jailing journalists? For this? Just stop.

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I canā€™t just hit like on your post because my ancient work computer isnā€™t fully compatible, but right on. Greenwald is an ass, but heā€™s an ass that happens to be right about the issues you listed.

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Also, this just in! Rain is wet, sun is hot and dog bites man!

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I havenā€™t seen anyone defending Kinsley?

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ā€œDo I need to continue to participate in the debate over whether many U.S. journalists are pitifully obeisant to the U.S. government? Did they not just resolve that debate for me?ā€ Greenwald wrote. ā€œWhat better evidence can that argument find than multiple influential American journalists standing up and cheering while a fellow journalist is given space in The New York Times to argue that those who publish information against the governmentā€™s wishes are not only acting immorally but criminally?ā€

Putting aside Greenwald (from what I gather his personality is such that heā€™s a lighting rod for criticism) I donā€™t see how his point can be refuted.

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Then re-read the comments.

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What gets lost in the argument (which may be intentional) is the fact that the stuff heā€™s been publishing lately is on foreign intelligence gathering, something William Binney thought was out of bounds and probably the reason the Post and the Times didnā€™t publish it.

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Well at least it gave him the opportunity to update content on the content-anemic website he conned PayPal into footing the bill for.

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I have read them. Why donā€™t you point out the offending comment?

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Greenwald has worked (is working?) with other journalists to publish stories from the Snowden documents.

Greenwald seems to be the most ā€œin your faceā€ of these journalists but heā€™s not the only one.

There was a time, when his health was better - his health concerns since are bad luck, nothing he caused - when we could at least count on a few Mencken-like lines per column from Kinsley, and a reasoned representation of the muddled middleā€™s cry for civility, compromise, common sense and condemnations of every corner of American extremism.

Time went on, his output of decent writing went into long slow decline, thru a few good lines per quarter, to maybe ā€œaā€ decent line in a year. And meanwhile, he seemed completely to have missed the workings of the Overton Window and how it had rendered the middle ground full of slippery slopes towards gaping sinkholes, and how the vast bulk of extremism had accumulated far more steeply on the right, turning it into a pending deathslide, rendering his herd of centrist pundits into zoo-bound Pollyannas, oblivious and self-deluded. How truly terrible a pundit heā€™s become didnā€™t just now happen, or suddenly at all; but regardless, heā€™s way past irrelevant, frozen fast into a permanent state of irretrievable jerkwad.

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ā€œAccording our interpretation of Kinsley, what Greenwald does is shift the definition of ā€˜aiding and abettingā€™ so as to be part of the standard practice of investigative journalism,ā€ Paul said. "Per Kinsley, what Greenwald actually did met the definition of ā€˜aiding and abetting Snowden.ā€™ This is Kinseyā€™s opinion, as reflected in his review.ā€

It is disturbing when an editor at the NYT discusses ā€œaiding and abettingā€ in terms of opinions of the individual (Kinsley in this case) instead of a journalistic standard or at minimum an opinion from their legal department.

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Mostly because my ancient work computer wonā€™t let me use 90% of the functions on this site work.

But RalphB defended his position. Iā€™ll assume you were being snarky with your comment. joefromLowell basically wrote that Greenwaldā€™s complaints arenā€™t worthy of discussion. Heck the first comment is a refutation of Greenwaldā€™s complaint on the grounds that he didnā€™t know who Greenwald is (sure).

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That part has been lost in the weeds for a long, long time. Usually buried deep in one of his 8,000 word diatribes around paragraph 82 or so.

Heā€™s not mad at Kinsley for writing a bad review of his book. Heā€™s mad at him because a) heā€™s presented a contrary view, and b) heā€™s cutting into profits by being contrary.

Grifters gotta grift, as Iā€™ve said all along. If he were honest about his hustle Iā€™d have more respect for him.

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ā€œPutting aside for the moment the question of the legality or ethics of Greenwaldā€™s release of NSA secretsā€ā€¦see, I just am unable to do that. For me, the whole argument begins and ends right there, as well as with Snowdenā€™s stealing those NSA secrets. I am still unresolved on the matter.

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Kick the snark meter, gramps. Batteries seem to be dead.

It is the worst way. But itā€™s also the only way. Weā€™re never going to solve the problem of excessive government secrecy if all their secrets remain secrets, and nobody knows thereā€™s a problem.

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It shouldnā€™t be put aside because itā€™s a central question to this issue. Greenwald got into a twitter fight with Julian Assange over The Interceptā€™s decision not to publish the name of one out of five countries where the NSA is collecting phone calls. Greenwald believed doing so would endanger lives, that it would be unethical, but Assange didnā€™t give a shit. They both took shots at the Post and the Times for not publishing any of it.

Were the Post and the Times obsequious in their decision or simply concerned that publishing that information which has nothing to do with domestic surveillance could possibly endanger lives?

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