I Hate It When Mommy And Daddy Fight

The Daily Banter has "A Question for Mr. Charles Pierce" which reads, in part:

“Never before in a long period of newspaper intercourse—never before in any contact with a cotemporary, however unprincipled he might have been, have we found an opponent in statement or in discussion, who had no gentlemanly sense of professional propriety, who conveyed in every word, and in every purpose of all his words, such a groveling disregard for truth, decency and courtesy as to seem to court the distinction, only, of being understood as a vulgar [liar. Meeting ]one who prefers falsehood; whose instincts are all toward falsehood; whose thought is falsification; whose aim is villification through insincere professions of honesty; one whose only merit is thus described, and who evidently desires to be thus known, the obstacles presented are entirely insurmountable, and whoever would touch them fully, should expect to be abominably defiled.”

Mr. Pierce response with pungent "RESPONSE TO THE DAILY BANTER" in which he offers his opponent satisfaction:

You assume in your last note, that I “have challenged Mr. Wilmington,” and that he has informed me “over his own signature,” that he is quite ready to afford me “satisfaction.” Both assumptions are utterly false. I have twice challenged you, and you have twice attempted to shirk the responsibility. Mr. W’s note could not possibly be an answer to my demand for satisfaction from you; and besides, his note simply avowed authorship of a certain “communication” that appeared simultaneously with your libelous “editorial,” and stated that its author had “nothing to [retract.” ]For your gratification, however, I will remark that Mr. Wilmington’s case will be attended to in due time by a distant acquaintance of his who is not willing to see him suffer in obscurity.2 In the meantime, if you do not wish yourself posted as a coward, you will at once accept my peremptory challenge, which I now reiterate.

Actually, now that I take a closer look at my notes, neither of those quotes are from either Mr. Pierce of Esquire or Peter Player of The Daily Banter at all.  They are both taken from this exchange between James L. Laird of the Virginia Daily Union and Samuel Clemens of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise circa 1894 1864*

This was during the First Golden Age of American Journalism when the country was riddled with government espionage and counterespionage.  When the newspaper business was being overthrown and rebuilt by new, portable technology and skilled artisans. When open, vicious partisanship and shameless scandal-mongering was a given.  And long before the concept of "professional journalism" was even a whiskey-fueled twinkle in the bloodshot eye of America's most infamous ink-stained wretches.

So management regrets the error.

Management was also interested to see Mr. Pierce respond to someone's questions vis-a-vis Mr. Greenwald.  Ever since Mr. Greenwald became the Most Famous Reporter in the World and Mr. Pierce began writing about him and Mr. Snowden, I have asked Mr. Pierce in print many, many times about several aspects of Mr. Greenwald's occasional bouts of lying and uncontrollable, venomous slander and that mob of hysterical howler monkeys of his that swing into action the minute anyone questions any portion of Mr. Greenwald's dogma.

To-date, Mr. Pierce has never replied to any of my entreaties so it was interesting to see what it takes to get a response.

Management was also glad to see someone get some use out of this video, which management has cited a buncha times in every corner of the internet and all it ever got me was a blight of trolls.

Finally, management was delighted to see that, in response to a recent uptick in criticism of several editorial choices made by his new media enterprise -- First Look -- Pierre Omidyar has announced that noted trial attorney Nathan Thurm has been retained as the site's new ombudsperson.

"We are very excited to get an internationally known and respected figure like Nathan on-board," said fictional Pierre Omidyar. "We at First Look are all about integrity, and that means boldly challenging every aspect of the status quo. Sinister government and corporate entities are threatened by what we are trying to do, so our watchword has to be absolute fidelity to the facts -- no embellishing or making things up or petulant dick-waving or bitchy passive-aggressive tantrums will be tolerated up in here. Also as mankind's greatest champions of global openness and transparency, we feel we must lead by example, and that means complete transparency about our process, our funding, our editorial decisions and our ideological and political agendas." 

To that end, Mr. Thurm has been given his own First Look media space (tentatively entitled "I Am Rubber/You Are Glue") and, according to Omidyar, complete freedom to fearlessly tackle any criticism of First Look's handling of issues involving the global threats of surveillance, rigged elections, military aggression and attacks on press freedom...as long as his fearless tacking in no way mentions Russia, China or several South American countries which have yet to be fully enumerated. 

Ironically, First Look's "hands-off-Russia" policy has itself generated a number of the most critical public statements which will be waiting for First Look's new ombudsperson when he begins work later this month.

When asked to comment on the irony of these criticism of First Look's own attitude towards criticism, Mr. Thurm's replied, "Look, you go to war you the greatest champions of global openness and transparency you have -- not the the greatest champions of global openness and transparency you might want or wish to have at a later time."

* Thanks, Yastreblyansky