s skippy the bush kangaroo: klein after klein; or, there's no klein like the present

skippy the bush kangaroo



Tuesday, September 01, 2009

klein after klein; or, there's no klein like the present

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get it? swampland! it's a photoshop pun!


oh, no he dint! joe klein threw down @ 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.
now, we are no friends of glenn greenwald. for one, he dumped the link to our blog from his roll long ago, and atrios everyone knows how we feel about being slighted by hoity-toity big box blogs. and, secondly, and perhaps more loquaciously, glenn never misses a chance to use ten words where one would do. hey, he's a lawyer, what do you expect?

all things being equal, however (as has been pointed out in many a comment section on threads reporting on this squabble), glenn tends to also use things like facts, cites, sources and logic, which apparently is what has joe in such a tizzy.

for instance: the "private communications" that joe laments have been made public were emails to a listserv, which many have pointed out, don't really count as "private communications." it's kind of like complaining that someone talked about what you put on your facebook page. if you wanted it to be private, joe, you shouldn't send it to an email group. that's what the word "group" means.

and more than one commentor @ swampland mentioned that klein himself published the name and email address of a private citizen not two weeks ago. so much for "private communication."

moreover, joe himself was one of the loudest proponents of the government's warrentless-fisa eavesdropping on american citizens. he therefore has absolutely zero leeway to become incensed over having his communications made public.

also: as someone else pointed out elsewhere, it's richly ironic to end a paragraph full of hyperbole with "it is not hyperbole." mr. magritte, paging mr. rene magritte, white courtesy telephone.

john cole adeptly reminds us that it's not really good form to attack somebody for what they don't say:

you have to love the sheer beauty of that baby, don’t you? read it a second time. klein is condemning greenwald for what he hasn’t said. how awesome is that? i mean, if you get to condemn people for things they haven’t said, you can just make up any old shit and then smear someone. why, i bet greenwald has not recently stated that he loves the humane society. in jokeline’s world, that is clear evidence that glenn cares not a whit about animals. even better, greenwald may have even said all the things that jokeline arbitrarily has decided he needs to say, but if klein hasn’t seen them, well, the accusation still stands.
and many commentors (specifically on swampland, joe's own blog) remark that the "i'm more patriotic than that greenwald guy" canard is not only flimsy, but old.

anyway, one of john's commentors needed all of 30 seconds on google to disprove joe's anti-patriotic accusation against glenn.

joe is not the one who looks bad in this fracas. there are many a point to be made against greenwald, but joe didn't even come close. he didn't even come close to a legitimate debate. more like driving the waaaaah!-mbulance with the siren on.

bonus brilliant reading material: the "rather pathetic woman acolyte of greenwald's" who "published a hyperbolic account of a conversation" that joe had with her "at a beach picnic on cape cod" is aimai, a co-blogger @ no more mister nice blog. her account of joe's summer meltdown on the cape is here.

addendum: via digby, and as digby herself says: glenn's response is restrained, to say the least.
posted by skippy at 3:25 PM |

3 Comments:

I need a scorecard to keep up with this feud.
commented by Blogger Michael Hussey, 11:18 AM PDT  
I'm sorry but Joe is the one who indeed 'looks bad in this fracas'. Very bad. He is two-faced and eaaily the greasiest 'liberal' pundit this side of Dick Morris. Yes, Greenwald is a windbag but he had every right to call out Klein.
commented by Blogger Jymn Parrett, 5:16 PM PDT  
About 20 years ago, some university got a grant to see if there was anyway to judge someone's sanity that was quicker and cheaper than paying shrinks.

A bunch of psychology majors were sent to three or four mental institutions under "court orders." They were coached as to how someone with their diagnosis would act and think.

When they mixed with the general population, they were all tagged as "fakes" by the real psychos within 48 hours.

Why this method wasn't accepted I have no idea, I just found it interesting.

Now, I am certifiably nuts, and I can recognize my fellow nuts real fast. This guy Klein needs some serious head adjustment with heavy meds.
commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 7:21 PM PDT  

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