No kidding.
And in that bar they take turns holding forth on what "the left" really believes and why Ron Paul's existence is a damning indictment of the Progressive Movement and the Democratic Party.
Because who would know better what sinister motives lurk in the dark hearts of Liberals than...Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan?
From Andrew Sullivan:
The Ron Paul candidacy has proven a very fertile event on both right and left. It has shown that there is some real disquiet among conservatives about retaining the 20th Century vision of American military global hegemony. And it has shown that the left is ultimately more concerned with the hunt for damning ideological associations, than with the ideas that Paul has promoted - even when those ideas are closer to some of candidate Obama's than president Obama's. In a deliberately provocative must-read, Glenn Greenwald spells out the left's priorities in demonizing Ron Paul...
Mr. Sullivan then links to a long article in which Mr. Greenwald does what is now Mr. Greenwald's stock-in-trade: radically decontextualizing complex decisions made by the grotty, impure slobs on the Left down to simple binary bouillon cubes --
The very same people who in 2004 wildly cheered John Kerry — husband of the billionaire heiress-widow Teresa Heinz Kerry — spent all of 2008 mocking John McCain’s wealthy life courtesy of his millionaire heiress wife and will spend 2012 depicting Mitt Romney’s wealth as proof of his insularity.
-- with which he can then vehemently disagree.
Mr. Sullivan then returns to lambaste "the left" for our various sins and failings, going reflexively to the All-Purpose Conservative Hail Mary of doubling down on defending the fragrant top-notes and moist, cake-like consistency of the poo into which one has just stepped:
And so [the Left spends] enormous energy persuading themselves that Paul is actually a paranoid, anti-Semitic, racist bigot, and so need not be engaged seriously...
Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Sullivan both exist quite comfortably in a parallel dimension made up of dorm rooms debates bolted together with abstractions, and where the ugly specter of imperfect political reality does not intrude. It is a fine place, safely above it all, where you can fire in all directions with impunity, and impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees with you with all the righteous fury of the perfectly pure.
From a short, incisive essay on Mr. Greenwald by A. Jay Adler introducing a longer, livelier essay on Mr. Greenwald:
... If you read Greenwald much, you know there is no life in anything he writes about. His words are acerbic, glum, and dispiriting. His common goal is to paint incendiary and dehumanizing portrayals of anyone who has ever sought to serve in government. He never has his own expertise or solutions to bring to his narratives. The goal is to always tear down someone else, and drive his readers into pitchforked frenzies of ideological zeal. He does it so well that his screeds will suck all the oxygen from the national conversation whenever he drops a new one at Salon.com, the Guardian.co.uk, or whichever venue is giving him space that day.
And to underscore the point, more of Mr. Greenwald speaking for himself:
...
Even worse are the lying partisan enforcers who, like the Inquisitor Generals searching for any inkling of heresy, purposely distort any discrete praise for the Enemy as a general endorsement.
So potent is this poison that no inoculation against it exists. No matter how expressly you repudiate the distortions in advance, they will freely flow. Hence: I’m about to discuss the candidacies of Barack Obama and Ron Paul, and no matter how many times I say that I am not “endorsing” or expressing support for anyone’s candidacy, the simple-minded Manicheans and the lying partisan enforcers will claim the opposite. But since it’s always inadvisable to refrain from expressing ideas in deference to the confusion and deceit of the lowest elements, I’m going to proceed to make a couple of important points about both candidacies even knowing in advance how wildly they will be distorted.
I promise Mr. Greenwald that despite years of being a paid-up, card-carrying member of the "lowest elements" I will try as hard as my simple-minded Manichean brain will permit to make no such badthinkful distortions of his jaundiced, preemptive contempt for anyone who does not happen to line up with him straight down the line.
Instead I will simply note that this is the sensibility of a child.
A very bright child to be sure, but also a very angry child. And it stands, in many ways, as the perfect obverse side to the David Brooks scam: where Mr. Brooks pretends to hold himself fanatically between all sides of every issue (except that dirty immoral Hippies obviously destroyed all that is good in America), Mr. Greenwald holds himself stridently above all issues (except that dirty deviationist Hippies are obviously Obamabot hypocrites and possibly worse than six Hitlers.)
And that is a very cozy hammock to lie in.
Hell, after wasting my vote on John Anderson in 1980 because I thought Jimmie Carter was icky and
Ronald Reagan was nuts
I could have easily tantrumed myself through the next 30 years, hopping from one, doomed purist cause and candidate to another while sneering at the grubby compromisers and half-a-loafers who foolishly believed that "good enough" could ever be good enough.
And please understand (although I am sure my Manichean swine enemies will twist my words to make it sound otherwise!) I would never rebuke my younger self for that decision any more than I would mock anyone who gave their heart to Candidate Obama only to wake up one day brokenhearted to discover he was just a politician: I find no fault in these things because I don't think idealism is foolish and I don't think "politician" is a dirty word.
But if you linger long enough after graduation in the high school parking lot of American politics refusing to move on or grow up, don't be surprised if people start treating you like that creepy guy who hangs out in the high school parking lot refusing to move on or grow up.
53 comments:
Very funny, loved your ending!
Two Words: You Rule.
That is all.
Regards,
Tengrain
Thank-you again!
Yeah, I like your take and Roy Edroso's the best. Scott Lemieux and aimai have also made some good points. I like Greenwald's work overall, but I was really disappointed in that one. It's a hoot to see him talk about intellectual honesty in a post where he dishes up such a ridiculous straw man. I assume he's sincere, and he makes some decent points, but he also overshoots the mark pretty badly. Yes, American imperialism is odious and Obama's support for it should be challenged. However, as Digby and others have shown, Ron Paul is not actually for civil liberties; he actually supports oppression, just as long as it's carried out by the states. And his default support for plutocracy further empowers the war machine. Hey, I'll continue to cheer Paul on when dares to speak truth at Republican debates, but unfortunately, his accuracy is limited to only a few subjects. There are plenty of people criticizing Obama's foreign policy insightfully and substantively without Ron Paul's considerable (and insurmountable) baggage.
Noctobi. The word verfication!
Tricky country to navigate. Reality has a gloomy bias, innit?
Glenn Greenwald is drinking at a bar when in walks a shirtless man with a Scottish accent, shouting at the top of his lungs, "VOTE FOR RON PAUL"
The bartender points to a sign, "No shirt, no shoes, no service" and tells him he has to leave.
"Fuck you!", the man screams, "Ron Paul says I have the right to bare arms"
So the bartender tosses him out. Greenwald asks, "Who was that guy?"
"Oh him? He's Manic Ian"
Funny thing, but I don't remember any of these sneering, vitriolic dissections of Greenwald's work when he was going after Bush on precisely these same issues.
Odd, that ...
Here's the problem: There's reams and reams of Liberal/Progressive rhetoric out there from the Bush years -- some of it from Obama himself -- that's on the record bitterly denouncing Bush for doing exactly the same shit Obama is pulling now.
If Obama deserves the benefit of the doubt because he's operating in a complex world where imperfect mortals make decisions, why didn't the same hold true for Cheney and his meat-puppet?
All this condemnation of Bush either meant something, or it was just a convenient way to beat the enemy over the head, no longer operative once our guys had their hands on the levers. If nothing else, I remember how I felt about these actions, and what I said about them at the time. So isn't it only natural I should feel a bit conflicted about voting again for someone who's not just set a bipartisan seal of approval on a multitude of policies I despised from the first, but taken them places even the Bushies didn't dare go?
If I wasn't feeling some major discomfort right now, I'd be nothing more than a mindless partisan. Screw that.
I am not a Paulite. I can conceive of no circumstance short of someone sticking a pod in my closet that would ever prompt me to vote for him. And that's besides the fact that Libertoonians make my skin crawl. But there's no avoiding that it *is* profoundly weird and disheartening that this mutant offspring of Ayn Rand with zombie Bircherism is the only one speaking up about these issues.
Btw, as the coiner of such blazingly appropriate phrases as the "Pig People", surely you're aware that there's a fair amount of "tear[ing] down someone else" and "ideological zeal" in your own writing? Or have I been reading someone else's rants all these years?
Greenwald obviously struck a very sensitive nerve, and the responses I've seen so far have gone a long way towards unintentionally proving his point. Literally 90% of the criticism I've seen would only make some kind of sense if he were endorsing Paul. Which he went out of his way at the outset to explictly state he wasn't.
Of course, as an actual comment I saw today on another blog claimed, that could be grounds for suspicion that he is in reality a closet Paulite.
Jebus: What a lousy, stupid way to start a year.
IMO this blog has diminished itself irreparably for attacking Glenn Greenwald. This blogs blind defense of Obama exactly underscores the point Greenwald makes about so called progressives who denounced the behavior of the other side and now excuse that same behavior in those they support. I will continue to read the truths that Glenn Greenwald writes, I will not waste much more of my time reading those who defend behaviors they criticize in others. Furthermore Obama is a bought and paid for conservative.
I don't know if this is true, but I read somewhere that Greenwald originally supported the invasion of Iraq. That would certainly adversely color my impression of him.
Word verification: Abiess, and sometimes it does seem as though our national politics have become quite an abyss.
Mr. Roboto Greenwald said that himself in the introduction to one of his books.
And Greenwald's drunk fratboy behavior on Saturday nights on Twitter make him irreparably boring.
Good morning, Mr. Glass.
Warning: this'll probably be a long comment.
1. Full disclosure: I'm as much a fan of yours as I am Mr. Greenwald's. So please don't take anything I say as being nasty towards you.
2. I agree with you that Mr. Greenwald oversimplified the Left's criticisms of Mr. Paul. I recently emailed Ms. Gal pointing out that MY dislike for Mr. Paul comes from his desire to "repeal the 20th century", as I've heard it put elsewhere.
However, Mr. Greenwald might be basing his condemnation of the Left on comments he has to deal with on his columns (the Paul one got, I think, over 900 of them).
3. You know how you LOVE to talk about memory, how good people remember, and how bad people forget? Mr. Greenwald has the same fixation on hypocrisy. That's why his article had the flavor it did. I don't think he supports Mr. Paul so much as he was condemning the Left's apparent hypocrisy on him and Mr. Obama.
4. Mr. Greenwald (like myself) is more of an idealism-over-pragmatism type. From what I can tell, you're the opposite. Either perspective is fine, as I see it. But I thought I'd point it out for clarity's sake.
5. I don't think Mr. Greenwald's criticism with Mr. Obama boils down to "he was just a politician", as you put it. I think it boils down to Mr. Obama is acting far too much like Mr. Bush for Mr. Greenwald's tastes. And I could be wrong here, but I'd say that you yourself have a line that, should Mr. Obama cross it, you'd think of him just as harshly.
For my part, I really do not look forward to four more years of scary, fascistic, and completely unnecessary power-grabs by this Administration, should it win in November. Yes, I know the Republicans are worse. But if we keep ending up with Democrats who act a little more like Republicans each time, eventually there will be no difference between them.
Okay, I'm done. Like I said, no nastiness meant. Just thought I'd speak my mind.
Hey Drifty, I've been reading your blog and sending you money for years now, and I can say the same for Greenwald.
It's hard for me to chalk what Obama has done as just being a "politician." It won't wash. We need to demand the Obama we elected, and if he cannot be that, we need to challenge him from the left. If we are so willing to sacrifice our principles for political power, we are no better than the republicans.
As far as Glenn's behavior on Twitter, who has time to pay attention to that when there are so many important things to do? If BlueGal and Driftglass ARE the self-appointed professional left are really professional, and are you really left? Really? If so, you'd be outraged by what's going on and not simply lobbing the same old tedious grenades at the useless right wing.
Greenwald is at least consistent, if not shrill. (heh)
Face it, there is good news and bad news. The good news is Obama will easily win in 2012; the bad news is Obama will easily win in 2012.
First, let me say I love this blog and that I come in peace. Okay...
I think it's inaccurate to equate Greenwald with Brooks in any capacity. Regardless of anyone's opionion on Greenwald's body of work, he's working hard (Brooks is not) to talk about important issues in stark terms (Brooks never does). I think we should give Greenwald credit for that and spare him a Sullivanian "Brooks Award." Seriously, Brooks will go on taking laissez faire half shits in the giant septic tank of American political discourse, but at least Greenwald is on the pot, so to speak.
I think what's interesting about Greenwald is that his work forces you me to ask questions I wouldn't normally ask myself; for instance, "Why shouldn't I vote for a more repugnant Ron Paul if his election actually resulted in better policy?" (I don't think it would, but I've been thinking it through.) Sure, Greenwald's argument is a fallacy--one need not think anything or anyway about Ron Paul as a requirement for assessing Obama--but, unlike many, at least Greenwald asks us to turn the mirror on ourselves (and I don't care if he turns that same mirror on himself and thus thinks of himself always the fairest).
What I also admire about Greenwald, and you Driftglass, is that you channel anger and frustration (among other things) into really important work. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Greenwald thinks he's witnessing the collapse of civilization, so he's howling as a result. I know it sounds far-fetched to say at times "the planet is at stake," but isn't it? I'm willing to forgive Greenwald some of his acid because more often than not his columns at least make you think critically (even to dismantle him on occassion). Brooks is self-deconstructing.
"A very bright child to be sure, but also a very angry child."
Sound like anyone we know? Or all of us?
But basically what prof_fate said. How you can be so vitriolic about Bush and Reagan while insisting Obama get the benefit of the doubt because you "don't think politician is a dirty word" is beyond hypocritical. The man just signed indefinite detention into law after specifically insisting it be inserted into legislation that even Republicans hadn't written it into. And you still defend him? You find no fault?
One day you'll wake up with Barack Obama, look in the mirror, and see Andrew Sullivan dancing with Ronald Reagan. What a pity, driftglass.
Hah. Greenwald's point is so well proven here. Look at how nasty you all get with him for simply pointing out the undeniable: your boy Obama is just another execrable link in the march to fascism and you now have to choose between your espoused values and your political positions. Makes you all uncomfortable, no doubt.
Sorry Driftglass. The daily screed against the pathetic Mr. Brooks is no longer with my time if you insist on lumping in Sullivan with Greenwald.
You are irrelevant to the political process and always will be, and frankly, it appears that is where you are most comfortable.
Bye!
You know how we can tell someone is in denial when they respond to an argument they don't like? They ignore the actual argument and talk about their feelings.
Did Obama take Bush's security state and run with it? Did he sign indefinite detention without law? Is he mowing over our civil rights? Yes, he is and yes, he did.
Would the left fight against Obama and vociferously criticize his actions if committed by a Republican? Yes, they would. How do we know that? Because Bush pulled this crap too and the left did criticize his actions.
The only thing this life gives us to cling to when times get rough is the truth. Greenwald's truth is the law and the law is impartial. The law doesn't care if you agree with it or like it. It doesn't belong to a party or tribe. It is, and no amount of argument will change that.
If you are sure you are right then you tell the truth to the very best of your ability and let the chips fall where they may. The problem is making sure you are right. How are we to know if our actions will have good results or bad results? We can't know; actions are fractal and we may never know if we are doing the right thing.
So we listen to the voice inside that tells us right from wrong and we close our eyes and take a leap of faith. If we tell the truth and try to help others we can trust ourselves to make the right decision. If we have to find reasons and argue ourselves into doing something that we feel is wrong we are making the wrong decision.
Andrew Sullivan is a dumbass because he would rather feel good about himself than tell the truth. If we continue to elect officials who do things we hate, things we know are wrong and that will hurt innocent people, so we don't have to feel bad about ourselves, we are just one more dumbass to add to the growing mass of dumbass humanity.
We tell ourselves we are grown-ups, realists, good citizens, when we make bad choices, but we are just avoiding the truth. Drone wars are wrong. Indefinite detention is wrong. We are not good people if we do bad things. We are bad people who lie and tell ourselves we are good.
We would not be watching our civil rights erode if we had done the right thing. We would not be faced with this Hobson's choice between our crazy and their crazy. Our compromises created this world that live in. Our bad decisions, our vanities, our greed, our indolence. We built our world chain by chain, and now we don't like what we see but we don't want to take responsibility for what we have done. We blame everyone else but ourselves. We lie and say that this was done to us, when we let it happen and sometimes fought to make it happen.
But we are rewarded for lying to ourselves and punished for telling the truth. We must endure pain, because the truth usually hurts. We must endure rejection, lose money, get kicked out of the club.
But you know what? There is a club and we are not in it.
Love your work, but disagree completely about Greenwald, who is doing some of the finest writing about the most important issues that lamestream media avoids like the plague.
If you retain belief in the two party system, then Greenwald certainly disappoints. However, if your allegiance is to progressive principles rather than the joke that the Democratic wing of the Corporate Party has become, then it's hard not to appreciate Mr. Greenwald's efforts call em as he sees em.
Comparing Greenwald to Brooks is downright hateful. Wish you hadn't done that. What's next – disclosing that Mark Taibbi secretly envies Tom Friedman's expense account and key to the Club?
prof fate wins.
I think some commenters might need a re-read of this classic from TBogg: http://tinyurl.com/36khur
Just sayin'.
Ask yourself which of these two scenarios would be better:
Obama gets reelected, Republicans win the Senate and retain the House.
Ron Paul gets elected president, progressive Democrats win the House and Senate.
Neither scenario is optimum, but the second would be a lot more interesting.
Word Verification, inglisms: What Republicans try to achieve during sex?
Much love to you Drifty, my leftist jackhammer.
But Greenwald eats your fucking lunch.
Pssst ... he also has a lot fewer typos, misspellings and grammatical errors.
While it sure is fun to cockpunch conservatives, the Democratic Party has nothing left for us.
pandero:
Thanks -- and I do appreciate the supportive comments from you guys -- but I think Susan of Texas truly deserves that honor.
Have been reading you for a while but you lost me with this one. Greenwald might be heavy going, but until you can catalogue inaccuracies and inconsistencies anywhere near the scale of your white whale, he and Brooks don't even belong in the same fucking sentence. On my reading Greenwald makes the same civil liberties argument whoever is in power- if thats "aloof", then I'll take it over blind partisanship any fucking day. Prof_fate said the rest
I haven't seen so many comments here since your unfortunate stance that this president should also have the right to assassinate anyone, anywhere he likes.
That too was wrong.
Judea Peoples' Front vs. Peoples' Front of Judea, round 3,694,817...
This is why we keep losing ground. Congrats.
"I hate everybody" is so easy, even Dowd can do it. At the moment, even major democratic malpractice is mere rounding error next to the inability of anyone to report on the fact that conservatism is a total loss.
This fight is like declaring a man's diet to be terrible while he's dying of a snake bite. Let's first get the media to agree that true is good, then fix democracy.
I think your characterization of Greenwald was spot on. Although I at times, agree with what he posts, he has a bad habit of false equivalency and vitriolic defense of poorly framed arguments.
While you, Driftglass, got me through the end of the Bush/Cheney era/debacle of war and misuse of executive authority, it has largely been Greenwald who helped during the past couple of years with his consistent critique of what so horrified me in the evils of the Bush presidency.
I'm all for pragmatic politics but don't quite understand how awarenes of the "ugly specter of imperfect polital reality" means I should sit by thankfully when the president of my team decides to execute or detain people without due process or keep the country in the dark about the legal justifications for war/drones/etc. One can be fully cognizant of the political reality while at the same time criticizing it.
I came to the comments to write much more but Prof_fate, Susan of Texas, and a couple other earlier commenters captured my sentiments, expressing my concerns better than I was going to.
Thanks for your work, DG, even if I think this one missed the mark by seeming to allow distaste for Greenwald's "aloofness" or perhaps his "irreparably boring" behavior on Twitter (BG) to run around the central point. The important thing to me of this Greenwald post that you've mocked is that even though we have to play "lesser of two evil" politics in our elections, we must be able to continue the necessary critique (and outrage, cf. Loretta above) of our side. Corey Robin has a post today that also made this point: for instance just because Ron Paul is unacceptably wrong doesn't mean that it acceptable that our side has brushed aside critique of the central issues that made the Bush presidency so detrimental.
AHHHHH!!! Stupid blogger ate my comment! It took a better part of an hour to compose! Lets all pretend it was the smartest thing ever written and then accept this poor substitute.
@Susan, love you comment (and I love your blog) but until I'm given better choices to make (and I realize that there is a lot more I could be doing to make that a reality) I will defend to the death my right, in fact what I see as my duty, to choose the lesser of two evils. Also, Greenwald is awesome at times, but that shouldn't give him blanket protection from well applied Snark anymore than Obama being the lesser of two evils should protect him from criticism from the left.
In your own unique way, you have written a fine argument for reason and pragmatism over passion, allowing that passion is a good thing, too, though better if moderated with reason. I'm not sure this is what you set out to do. But this was the effect. Thank you. This is what grown-ups do.
So many word walls in defense of Greenwald's hyperbolic screed of false equivalencies.
The wrongs of Obama and the wrongs of the Bush criminal cartel are not in the same ball park. They are not even the same game. So criticisms from one side are not some thought police exercise in party adherence. It is the difference between right and wrong.
This is how the right wins. As they march in lock step backing every new reactionary hammer stroke pounded in to the heads of the ignorant base, the left devours its own like a wounded shark swimming in a chum bath.
Don't listen to their crap drifty...you are right and they are not.
"The wrongs of Obama and the wrongs of the Bush criminal cartel are not in the same ball park."
Um, not really. The personalities and backgrounds may differ widely, but the psychopathic results on the most significant issues are quite similar. We can argue details until the cows come home, but in the end, as Deepthroat said, follow the money – to which the data clearly shows that during Obama's administration, unless you are one of the country's economic elite, you lose, and you lose big time.
And, if you disagree with than, well, welcome to Club Gitmo Mr. Terrorist.
i have always enjoyed drifty's posts -- and i go back years, when dg was one of the very few lasers branding the asses of the bushites as the war criminals they most certainly are.
but just as essential, with his relentless, legal-brief procedurals, was greenwald. i am startled that drifty can find anything greenwaldian to take issue with, but let's stipulate that the two don't have to share a long slow dance. i don't feel the need to give drifty up -- i can't quit you, dg! -- but as many commenters here have expressed vastly better than i can, you've blown this call.
that's ok. we can all stand to learn more. but talk about false equivalencies: greenwald/sullivan? greenwald/brooks? how weak indeed. you're a lot better than this post.
Thanks for linking to the Greenwald article. I practically always like his stuff, and agree with what he said there:
1) I would never vote for Paul.
2) I'm very glad Paul's putting out some principled left-wing stands on imperialism, the drug war, domestic spying and extra-legal killing.
Greenwald's right that no triangulating Democratic politician will say these things. I like the specific things he points to in Obama's actions and Paul's statements.
Christ, I just saw _The Bourne Ultimatum_ on TV - how naive of them to assume the heads of CIA assassination programs would be hauled before congress and jailed - it's something we're just expected to accept now. Somebody in politics better be voicing at least the obvious about our drift toward fascism.
And BTW, drifty, you come off as an angry sneering child more often than Greenwald, and certainly more often than you realize; I wouldn't cast those particular stones if I were you.
Interesting to see how much comment your post engendered, though.
You're absolutely right, DG, and you as always put it so well.
The difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney is measured in light-years. How soon people forget.
The difference between a second Obama term and the insane GOP owning all levers of government - which whether anyone likes it or not is the *practical effect* Greenwald and his ilk are fomenting - is like the difference between a turd and explosive, toxic, infected diarrhea with extra corn.
It's easy to forget that the Democratic leadership (Nancy Smash!) basically agrees with the progressive wing on everything, *except* war and Wall Street.
The Republicans agree with the progressives on absolutely *nothing*, ESPECIALLY war and Wall Street.
If we *pragmatically* want a chance to *rescind* these odious laws passed by Congress, then keeping the government out of GOP hands is the first and paramount consideration. There is absolutely no other way out of this impending horror. A Republican-controlled government will only double-down on everything we hate, with a vengeance.
Step two is, as Dr. Dean always said, "more and better Democrats." That's how the right-wing did it. They got their drooling god-botherers elected to every school board and dog catcher post they could scam, and kept moving them up. It took decades, and we now see the fruit.
There is no savior. Neither Barack Obama or Ron Paul are going to become divine King of America, waving his magic scepter and making all the badness go away.
We have to do it. One dogcatcher at a time. But RIGHT NOW, we have to play a containment game, or there won't be anything left to save.
Just to clarify my earlier point (though I find it interesting the hyperbole invoked in many of the comments criticizing hyperbole): I am largely in agreement with Joe Max's general points just made. Indeed, DG's vivid and superb analysis of the false equivalencies highlighting the centrality of those issues is what is so important about this site (and the ProLeft podcast).
And Driftglass's subsequent new post is still right that one party is out to dismantle just about everything, or perhaps everything, that I care about.
[Here I'll use Joe Max's recent comment as my reference, though the points are a DG mainstay.] But then how does one go about achieving Joe Max's step two, if any policy criticisms of Democrats are off limits during an election cycle? And -- this was the take-away which resonated most with me from that Greenwald post -- in current politics there is never a break in the election cycle (can't criticize a Democrat in 09 or you want to elect Repubs in 10 and are part of the Professional Left; can't criticize the President in 11 or you're in league with those who want to go Galt in 12). And so it goes... Joe Max's "RIGHT NOW" becomes neverending, which seems to be Greenwald's main point of that post.
For me (I won't claim to speak for Greenwald), it's not about political purity. It's trying within the insanely constricted political boundaries that exist to push ever so slightly toward that Step Two of Joe Max, while being fully aware of the reality of his first point. That Obama and most of the Democratic leadership fail on some central issues where someone as politically bad as Paul are closer to being right (even if for generally wrong reasons) should be a blemish against them, not against those who point it out.
Look bag on me all you wish, but out of common courtesy I would appreciate it if those who choose to use the "Anonymous" handle could differentiate yourselves from each other.
If nothing else, it'll make ID-ing you when I rat you all out to Homeland Security a little simpler :-)
I am Anonymous 12:30 p.m. and Anonymous 8:29 p.m., your next door neighbor in Gitmo cell block 32A.
Greenwald over in 34B is schedule for his daily waterboarding physical therapy tomorrow at 6:40 a.m. Taibbi is recovering in cell block 40C. George Washington, Yves Smith and Paul Krugman will be supervising the fiscal re-education seminar at 9:00 a.m.
Chris Hedges will be conducting vespers for the sunset executions of smart asses David DeGraw, Michael Moore, Robert Reich and Barry Ritholtz.
Max Keiser, Alex Jones and Geral Celente will be on the scenic midnight chopper flight over the Indian Ocean later that evening. Nomi and the Naomis will be performing afterwards in a "simulated" dawn drone attack.
Hmmm... am I leaving out anyone???
Anon 7:24 here...sorry..just depends on which browser I am using...in any case...
I hate to admit, I haven't read much Greenwald of late, just haven't ventured over to the vaunted pages of Salon in a while, for various reasons...but I read the article you linked to and..are the comment posters here defending him reading the same piece?..or is this all just based on some earlier works of his I missed?
It doesn't take "lying policy enforcers" or "Obamabots" to critique his lengthy list of Obama's supposed crimes or his weak comparisons of those mythical folk who railed against Bush..but are now silent as Obama apparently runs amok. It just takes someone with a memory that encompasses more than 3 years or anyone who recognizes the self imposed limitations of a president who respects the Constitution and one who wiped his ass with it for 2 terms.
I wouldn't view your John Anderson vote as a negative-I did the same thing for exactly the same reason - too bad more people didn't see it the same way.
I have likened Glenn in the past to the limerick about the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. I share his sensibilities and to a large degree his zeal for civil liberties. The Bush years, and now the Obama years, have left us with a horrid and potentially catastrophic legacy. This legacy needs to be addressed, and Glenn's work as an advocate in this regard has helped shine a light on an area otherwise ignored by the mouse circus... except of course to present the right wing interpretation as the only way to ensure safety. When Glenn focuses his intellect and verbosity upon this area as an advocate, there is little to nothing anyone can quibble over. This work is well-sourced, sharply argued, and persuasive.
I have read Glenn's work in Salon and occasional pieces in the Guardian since 2006. I am not encyclopaedic in my knowledge, but I have read enough to make certain categorical statements about the arc of his punditry. Glenn began as a fairly inconsistent conservative. He supported the Iraq invasion based on trust in the Bush administration, believed illegal immigration to be a grave threat, and admitted to not participating in the democratic process on the most elementary level of voting. With all the zeal of the newly converted, however, he became a persistent and consistent critic of the undergirding legal philosophy of the War on Terror. He has also adjusted many of his political stances in accord with this discovered zealotry.
One thing about Glenn that must be noted, and is crucial in understanding his work, is that he is not a progressive or a liberal... but that has not stopped him from attempting to adjust the meaning of progressivism and liberalism to his worldview.
One essential example I wish to highlight is his defense of Citizens United as a decision.The Supreme Court of the United States, in a narrow majority, took the core notion of "money is speech" and overturned 40 years of precedent in order to take the notion and transform it into a living thought experiment. This was an activist decision with enormous consequences that I believe will damage this country and make it less liberal and less free. Further, it flies in the face of previous decisions that recognized "money is speech" while setting clear limitations in the same manner that speech has been limited in other permutations. Slander, libel, treason, obscenity, pornography, copywright... while there are differences of opinion as to how much the federal government should control these avenues of expression, judicial philosophy extending all the way back to the dawn of our nation have clearly established that there are limits. Instead of taking these longstanding precedents into consideration, SCOTUS adopted the Federalist Society baseline and smashed a system which was barely effective in the first place.
Glenn Greenwald made the case in Salon that Citizens United was essentially a sound decision. His reasoning was entirely non-progressive, illiberal, and faulty. He adopted the "money is speech" baseline, used the current flawed system as a fig leaf to state that we are already broken, then made the outlandish and obfuscatory argument of "how much worse can it get" to justify his own Federalist Society interpretation. Liberalism is not about originalist interpretation. A liberal interpretation of campaign finance would clearly see the potential violation of equal protection and the long term damage of creating a permanent class of political expression whereby only a few by virtue of their wealth can control what is presented on public airwaves. Citizens United ignores all of this and so does Glenn in his attempt to convince his audience and progressives in general that this decision is ultimately the right legal interpretation. What is most pernicious about Glenn's work on this issue is that in order to effectively rebut him, you have to know what you are talking about. Instead, Glenn's rather sizeable and devoted following would not take their time to consider alternatives and would instead take reasoning on the basis of his ethical credibility:
I trust Glenn and his consistency. Therefore, his opinions on any matter carries the imprimatur of Progressivism.
That ethical argument is the implicit or explicit major premise in all refutations of criticism against Glenn. This ethical argument is the foundation of his burgeoning cult of personality that is damaging the conversation among the left. Yet this ethical argument is perversely laid at the feet of those who disagree with Glenn in a mirror image:
You trust Obama in spite of his egregious crimes. Therefore, your opinions are worthless and inherently avoid the truth.
This is binary thinking at its most glaring. I have met a handful of true believers in Obama. While they do exist, they exist in much smaller numbers than indicated by Glenn's rhetoric. Conversely, for the sake of clarity, the Firebagger or Glennbot also exist in miniscule numbers. I would even go so far as to say that these degrading and dehumanizing terms encompass exactly zero people. That doesn't stop the terms from being bandied about as a convenient ad hominem weapon to create difference among individuals whose core beliefs differ in small degrees.
Therefore, in spite of Glenn's yeoman-like work in bringing civil liberties issues to the attention of the public, I believe he is officially a toxic presence and unwelcome as a progressive or liberal voice. Not only does he display, as I show above, certain core principles at odds with liberalism, but he engages frequently in conspiratorial thinking. Glenn dedicated many of his columns to the thinly-sourced notion that President Obama carefully orchestrated the loss of the public option by emboldening key defectors within the party to become the scapegoat. Google Greenwald + kabuki and you will see not just his columns, but his words quoted by other progressive thinkers across the internet shaping a whole segment of the debate around hearsay and circumstantial evidence. While there did exist a documented trail of sourced proof that the Obama administration gave up on pushing the public option, the further steps up the ladder into the idea that the whole negotiation process was a charade strains credulity to the point of outright conspiratorial thinking. This is a feature, not a bug, of Greenwald's political writing whenever he steps off his civil liberties metier. Read his work on Wikileaks and the accusations against Assange. Read his defense of Bradley Manning. Read his discussion of the motives behind the assassination of Al Awlaki. At nearly every point Glenn moves beyond his consistent civil libertarian analysis of a legal matter, he becomes a pundit whose bloviating is as noxious as it is unfounded.
Finally, there is Greenwald's forays into Paul-curiosity. First and foremost, Glenn does a disservice to liberalism by calling any of Paul's beliefs "leftist." Ron Paul is an ardent confederate libertarian. The foundation of Paul's beliefs are fundamentally opposed to all shades of liberalism. While both Paul and a liberal (unlike Obama) would oppose the War on some Drugs, the means and thus the consequences for enacting said opposition are radically different. Paul would leave the laws and enforcement to the states, allowing for unequal and disparate treatment with zero federal oversight. Liberalism would use the checks and balances to pass a law, enforce via the FDA, DOJ and other agencies to ensure a well regulated and universal suffrage. While Obama will simply not address the Drug War outside of escalation (a notable failure), Paul's solution is inimical to civil rights and would do nothing for the state laws that incarcerate the vast majority of drug offenders. Paul's solution ends nothing and is not to the left of anyone because it is fundamentally rightwing.
Greenwald does a disservice to the current political dialogue by draping Ron Paul in the mantel of liberalism. In my mind, it shows that Glenn does not understand liberalism. Further, he does not understand history. If anything can be gleaned from Glenn's approach to politics, it is that civil liberties came into being at some nebulous point before Bush. These civil liberties were perfectly formed, and there no history of them being violated since their immaculate conception. Then Bush the demiurge appeared and did irrevocable damage, and now Obama is in many ways even worse. At no point has Glenn ever mentioned the Espionage Acts, and all other times in US history where outside threats (be they Tory, Mason, Confederate, Anarchist, Japanese, Communist, Muslim, etc.) have created expansions of executive authority into the liberties of US citizens. If Glenn were to be rhetorically consistent and honest, he would present a picture showing that the struggle for civil rights and liberties is a constant struggle that is universal to our democratic experiment. This would put Bush and Obama's actions in the same category for discussion as both Roosevelts, Truman, Lincoln, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, etc. Instead, by creating a manufactured unique crisis specific to these modern times, he foments a level of hyperbolic excess that feeds the Obama cult of personality. In so doing, Glenn misdiagnoses the problem as being specific to the patient as opposed to endemic to our government and society.
Glenn creates rhetorical breathing room for Obama as enemy, with Glenn as hero. All the Glennbot/Obot us vs. them binary thinking stems from the routine rhetorical tricks engaged in by Glenn at the expense of honest scholarship. Glenn damages the liberal brand while at the same time holding core beliefs that are not liberal. In conclusion, this makes Glenn Greenwald unworthy to describe himself as progressive, speak for progressives, and place himself in the position to shape the political debate on behalf of progressives.
"That Obama and most of the Democratic leadership fail on some central issues where someone as politically bad as Paul are closer to being right (even if for generally wrong reasons) should be a blemish against them, not against those who point it out."
This is a bit of dissumulation. Paul is a crackpot whose ideas lead to vague conclusions which in some way might be construed as being right. You have to put on some seriously tinted lenses to see Paul's political calculus as leading to correct and sensible political conclusions.
Confederate Federalism may lead to cantons of liberal Temporary Autonomous Zones. It may not. But to pretend that Paul's ideas are airtight leftist and correct solutions simply because they entertain the "maybe" is wishful thinking.
I will agree to one thing: the fact that no one in the political and media mainstream will present a cogent liberal framework for civil liberties is a tragic flaw. One of the consequences is that the vacuum allows for unstable particles like Ron Paul to exploit those of us who crave the conversation.
Oh. Good. Christ.
Listen DG I know you hate that all this traffic is coming because greenwald's name was mentioned, but here are the facts:
The BLUE DOG CAUCUS was the melting pot of mealy-mouthed, sullivan-easque neo-con lite centrism that America hated.
They were voted out of office in 2010.
Progressive and liberal congressmen by and large survived, moderates did not.
Now which party did Obama overwhelmingly bank with? You'd say the Democratic party, but he was completely aligned with the neoliberals from the clinton years and the blue dogs in congress.
Well what can I say Dg, the people want what they want, and what they didn't want and didn't like WERE OBAMA'S "IMPERFECT" CENTRISM!
Should he have gone full retard and endorsed stripping the CIA of its powers to blow up brown children in far away neverlands? Well I would hope so, but the point is he wouldn't HAVE TO GO THAT FAR!
Even more, if Obama had passed /something/ like the Public Option, most progressives wouldn't have given a damn about civil liberties, because most American liberals have drunk the kool aid and they WANT a powerful America.
Greenwald has done nothing but point out how the Democratic leadership excoriated Bush and the Republicans for being war thirsty barbarians, and for acting contrary to American values, but now that said leadership is itself in charge it's all OK.
We had Obama sinking the clinton campaign's primary ambitions, OVER THE FACT THAT HILLARY VOTED TO AUTHORIZE THE WAR!
Well what the FUCK do you know now?
Not only are we significantly involved in Iraq and Afghanistan STILL, but now Obama has escalated Pakistan into a very real conflict, as he has with Yemen, Somalia, and WHO CAN FORGET HE FUCKING BLEW UP LIBYA!
This is the guy who is so different than Bush and Cheney.
Well the neocon analysis is exactly the formula Obama is using with foreign policy.
You know who couldn't find evidence of mass rapes or or anything else that was used as a pretext for our "humanitarian mission"? Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the two NGOs most likely to find such a thing. Well what Libya does have is oil, and political clout within OPEC, and what Gaddaffi WAS DOING, was trying to manipulate OPEC away from American interests, and THEN WE BLEW HIM UP!
Lara Logan got raped in the streets by pro-mubarak thugs by a regime OBAMA WAS IN FULL SUPPORT OF until the People finally survived THE BULLETS AND THE BOMBS AND THE TEAR GAS and threw that mother fucker out.
Well I'm sorry DG, but Nader was right, and he's still right: there is no difference between the parties.
SCOTUS is the only one I know of where something of our Democratic conscience still survives but only a little bit.
Nader a spoiler? funny, if people CANNOT FIND THEIR INTERESTS IN EITHER PARTY, in our "IMPERFECT DEMOCRACY" then why can they not vote for a third party guy like Nader who does vaguely represent their interests?
Nader a spoiler? You forget that most of the country kind of thinks that Gore is an arrogant elitist Harvard asshole everytime he opens his smug mouth.
You also forget that he lost TN, and that the the Supreme Court was the one that Gave Bush the white house.
you also forget that Gore ran away like a fucking pussy.
We are not being bombed.
their are no drones with bombs over my head.
They are not killing MY family but they are killing someone elses'.
Why can't Greenwald point that out?
Why can't I like that greenwald points that out?
Why do I have to let Obama get away with it?
There is a very real anti-war constituency in America. It is always ignored as you know. You don't need to contribute to that driftglass.
"This is a bit of dissumulation.... You have to put on some seriously tinted lenses to see Paul's political calculus as leading to correct and sensible political conclusions.... to pretend that Paul's ideas are airtight leftist and correct solutions simply because they entertain the "maybe" is wishful thinking."
Sorry for posting a third long time, but Zipperupus, you quoted my comment before alleging dissimilution so I feel the need to unzip once more. I'll grant that I don't write clearly or succinctly enough, but it is not dissimulation. My point is expressly NOT that "Paul's ideas are airtight leftist and correct solutions." I was making no vindication of Paul, backdoor or otherwise. My intention in those sentences was solely to highlight the shame that electoral politics are at the point where someone like Paul can make noises that sound vaguely like what needs to be said because there is virtual silence from the political mainstream and from my side from whence I feel it should come (and from whence it came along with me several years ago).
I was trying to state in that passage you quoted largely what I think I am reading in your final point (of agreement) regarding the "tragic flaw." Nothing more; no wishful thinking about Paul; no support at all for Paul. Just wishing that the craved-for conversation you mention could continue without my long-running critique of executive authority being seen either as disloyalty to progressivism or as wishful thinking about a crackpot.
Without wanting to turn this into a complete personal anecdote, I'll do that anyway and relate one recent series of events to indicate where I'm coming from. (and I'll leave this in one long paragraph so that it can be easily skipped over if wanted) The Bush years were brutal, culturally, here in South Carolina. Writing from the cradle of the Confederacy, I can vouch fully for the core truths of DG's analysis of the GOP. I faced brutal criticisms for protests against Bush, his minions, and his policies. Then suddenly I witnessed how -- as DG says, there is no Tea Party -- the very same people, not just the same political factions but literally the same individual people, who ravaged anyone who would deign to speak or act critically in any way against the President, now turned overnight (and it actually began here in November 2008, DG, rather than waiting until the black man had formally put his hand on the Bible) into delegitimizing rhetoric that surpassed anything said about Bush. At the same time, my arguments about executive authority remained the same, and I left some of my quotations and critiques taped on my office door. As the months wore on and some of those concerns began to be applicable to Obama, they were ripped off my office door, and I faced tongue lashings from a few of my liberal friends about aiding the enemy. While DG is completely right about the intellectual bankruptcy of the Right (there is no Tea Party), that hypocrisy surprises me far less than unwillingness to continue to talk about what were to me central concerns by those on my side frustrates me. My motives and morality have always been suspect here among conservatives in South Carolina; now that we won the White House my attempt to say that this one too deserves blame for some actions and failures is somehow a bit of dissimulation masking some support of what I apparently believe are airtight leftist Paulite claims or wishfully imagining a McCain White House that would have been in any way better than this one.
So I guess this has, after all, just turned into a rant (why can't we all just get along) from my personal experiences of sadness and frustration that it has become difficult to have many meaningful policy discussions, even with those with whom I was allegedly in complete agreement 3+ years ago as we protested Bush's policies.
All of these concerns (and rants), while I tend to agree with the sentiment behind them, and while I have found Obama to be bitterly disappointing myself on several issues, do not change the political calculus of January 2012: we stand on the edge of the abyss. The Teabagger-infected GOP must be denied political power, by any means necessary and possible. The alternative is unthinkable. No passionate defense of civil liberties nor damning indictment of Obama's misdeeds can change this awful calculus. Every single person reading this KNOWS this to be true. And that knowledge is painful.
An Obama administration (or any Democratic administration) is, at the very least, AMENABLE to being influenced by progressives. Pressure brought on Democrats can have SOME effect, if not the full effect desired.
Progressives will have ZERO influence on any GOP administration. In fact, it will have NEGATIVE influence, since anything progressives favor will be automatically opposed. (We've all seen this effect clearly for the last three years.)
So here's the choice: support Obama's re-election, even though it feels like tearing out a piece of your soul (here I show my empathy for those CAPS LOCK commenters who's passions are, IMHO, wild overreactions) in order that we have a *possibility* of moving our political reality in a progressive direction, OR "vote your conscience" (or not vote at all) and be instrumental in bringing about the horrors to come.
When the first bombs fall on Tehran, the blood will be on your hands.
You're, of course, right. We need to all get in line, on board, and vote for Obama. It's not important that he does what he complained about under Bush (and worse!) - hey, dead soldiers and Iraqis are only a problem when bad conservatives cause it. OWS is fun for the kids but they need to quit playing and go reelect the guy with the pretty words. And, how dare Greenwald for wanting us to pay attention to deeds and not tribal loyalties. Democrat Uber Alles!!
Sheesh.
I'm so glad I got here too late to join the fray.
You rock as usual (and are a rock of reason), Dg. Of course, I also grok Susan of TX, prof_fate and that zipperingus dude. (And that Roy guy before me is also worth keeping an eye on.)
I love almost all of Glenn's reasoned dissections but find his Federalist origins (and have written a bit myself critically on the Federalist Papers) and defense of Citizens United as uniquely disqualifying of him from my "A list," and thus only quote his diatribes (ha) when I specifically agree with every word.
Andrew Sullivan receives no notice on my blog as I consider him just another bought-and-sold-cheaply pol who parades around as a middle-class reporter/whiner amenable only to those willing to dismiss his entire history.
And although I now have 100+ (whatever that signifies) followers on Twitter, I'm getting sad now that I have never "followed" it on weekend nights, BG, as it seems I have missed the "meat" of it somehow.
And I thought it was just a way to let my followers know what I thought important to read/follow! I learn new lessons daily.
Love you (both)!
S
P.S. Fantastic word ver: fedlic. Ha!
@ ROY +1
@Zipperupus-- After wading through all of your posts, there is simply one point that matters overall: Greenwald's support of Citizens United forced me to wake up regarding his supposed "fairness," and expertise on all things concerning the law. There is nothing he could say or write from that point on--he lost all credibility. If faux progressive readers want to disregard his twisted legalese logic, than they are as delusional as Greenwald. He's doing it again with Paul--leaving out the facts regarding Paul's voting record on many issues progressives have championed: environmental laws, endangered species legislation, reproductive rights for women, equal pay, civil rights, (Paul would undo the 1964 civil rights act, if he could.) I have been watching Paul's voting record for a long time. It doesn't matter if he has claimed to be anti-war, when all of his other positions are ANTI-HUMAN.
The main purpose of Greenwald's pro-Paul screed is to twist the ideologies of liberalism and shame progressives into embracing his particular brand of delusional thinking. It ain't all about Obama--Although, it has become painfully obvious that Obama sold out his supporters months ago. He is not progressive/liberal or even close. However, that does not translate into why Greenwald is giving Ron Paul the mantle of "progressivism," and twisting him into some kind of shiny new anti-war hero of the day. Paul is a Repuglican, and perhaps has the potential to be much worse than Obama. I have come to the conclusion that there are no viable choices for POTUS. At least, no one that can actually be elected. So, we are left with Obama, his signing of the NDAA and the Constitution he has managed to grind into dust, (along with Mr. Bush,previously.)
Still, Drifty is correct about Greenwald, whether one agrees or not, about who Obama actually is. Paul is someone who should be eviscerated by the media, not promoted as wishful Savior of the Left, as Greenwald has done. Greenwald's gaslighting methods are far more sinister--at least with Brooks you know what you are getting--an intellectually dishonest panderer who will say absolutely anything if it will protect his wing-nutty little world. Greenwald pretends to be reasonable and just progressive enough to sway his fans. And, apparently, it works.
The stench of hypocrisy is so strong, I barely have a sense of smell left.
Everything bad is now good. Every abuse that Bush & Co. committed is now okay because Obama & Co. are committing it, and We Live In A Complex World.
Susan of Texas nailed it. So did prof_fate. At least there are still some of us out here who don't think rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law are just quaint artifacts.
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