Well imagine my surprise when I see this blogposting from the Kos at his midday open thread. I'll summarize, while quoting it exactly:
Joe Klein, Asshole.
Ooookay, I says to myself. What'd Joe do now?
I click on the link (where it says asshole), and prepared to open up whatever Time Magazine column to see what the deal is.
Only I'm not opening up Time Magazine's webpage, I'm opening up something called UT Documents. (And I have no idea what UT stands for.)
Now, clearly UT Documents a blogger.com site (it's even using the same template as good ol' Fort McHenry here). I think it's run by Glenn Greenwald. I say that because is his name and bio is up top.
And what follows that is a running email exchange between Joe Klein and Glenn Greenwald.
Okay.
Now, Glenn holds himself to the highest Journalistic standards. Well, acutally, he spends a lot of time demanding others hold to these high Journalistic standards. So my first question is, did he let Joe Klein know he was going to publish this email exchange?
A disclosure of this nature isn't subject to flexible journalistic standards, which Glenn is apparently now displaying. Either he told Joe or he didn't. If he didn't, not cool. Not cool at all.
I just checked Salon.com, and Glenn's last posting was August 30th, 2009. Yesterday. And as I've posted before...that posting about D.C. Nepotism was bang on target.
So, as I said...not cool at all.
Joe Klein (not surprisingly) concurs:
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."
Oh my God, Glenn. You've put me in the position of having to defend über-insider Joe Klein. Think about that.
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.
In the end Joe does summarize his feelings about Glenn Greenwald. Oddly, they reflect my own (for the most part):
I am not a religious reader of Greenwald--he does go on, and on--and it's possible that I missed extensive posts in which he praises the Armed Forces or makes positive suggestions about how to track possible communications between terrorists abroad and their confederates here. But I sort of doubt that. What I have seen from him, ad nauseum, are intemperate attacks in which he questions the character of--no, it's worse than that: he slimes--anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him.
I agree with Greenwald on some things, and appreciate his insights on others. But he is a thoroughly dishonorable person--as he proved by releasing my private emails--and, when it comes to his oft-trumpeted belief in the right to privacy, a stone hypocrite as well.
I'm sorry if this offends people who are fans of Glenn Greenwald. But my problem isn't really what he complains about...it's how he complains. It's how he draws lines in the sand, its how...as Joe put it...he attacks anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him. He doesn't try to probe, understand, negotiate or...reason; all does is attack. This is a pattern with him.
And in this case, like Joe said, he seems to have added hypocrisy to the list.
