Dear Mr. Greenwald,

I had intended to write yesterday to point out that when you first wrote on the ABC/Iran story and said this:

“[i]t's all basic common sense for how to avoid publishing suspect stories that lack credibility,”

you were a bit off of the mark. Then I thought, its just semantics and almost everyone, certainly any journalist, would agree with the way I would phrase it:

"[i]t’s all basic common sense for how you establish credibility with the readers of a story."

I’m speechless.

I couldn't agree more, Glenn, it makes me sick to my stomach (almost literally).

But I did think that the blanket condemnation of the Washington set was a bit unfair and said so in the linked post. There were some true profiles in courage, even in the shock of the aftermath of 9/11. People such as Russ Feingold, Scott Ritter and Sy Hersch really don't deserve to be lumped in with the rest of politicians and media figures who failed (and continue to fail) in their duty to the public.

Political choices are almost always the choice of the lesser of evils.

I totally agree with your take on criminalizing the act of an adult paying for sex with another consenting adult. What I don't see is any hypocrisy on Spitzer's part for doing that and this:

"Though his signature issue was pursuing Wall Street misdeeds, as attorney general Mr. Spitzer also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island."

Just like I don't think there's anything wrong for the government to prosecute drug traffickers but something very wrong for them to prosecute indivual citizens for using illegal drugs. If Spitzer had been going after Johns, that would be hypocritical.

I don't fawn but I want to tell you that I think you are the truest of patriots and an American hero - to use that now abused word - in my book. Keep doing exactly what you are doing, this country needs you and people like you more than even you know, I fear. The corporate press will help self-serving elites destroy what good is still left of this once great nation and there is nothing left to stop them beside independent critics such as you.

I bought your new book immediately (I've bought and read all of your books) and will continue to support your work in any way that I can.

Sincerely,

Steve Shepherd

Much like the FISA decision (which ended my campaign donations for Obama) and the Biden pick (which I called a mistake at the time), if the Andrea Mitchels, David Ignatius and Fred Hiatts of the political establishment are neutralized while Obama develops his policy agenda, that's just plain brilliant. As you suggest, we'll have to wait and see what that agenda actually is but it would surely be DOA if popularly opposed by The Palace Press. By default, the appointments are successful if they are lauded by the vacuous adolescents who make public opinion and, ultimately, public policy. Nothing good can be accomplished without, at least, their acquiescence.

You, of all people, should know that.

There's something else at work here, beside the establishment media's inability to see in anything but political and partisan frames. I'd be willing to bet that you could plot the individual likelihood of whether a given political figure supports or dislikes investigating Bush Administration torture proponents based on how they test on the RWA scale. For instance, I'd bet that people such as Jesse Ventura and Anthony Taguba test a very low RWA, in other words they have little reverence for authority for its own sake, whereas a David Broder or Richard Cohen would test relatively high on the RWA scale, showing a strong authoritarian following tendency. Everything, the rationalization, projection, apparent moral depravity, flows from the need to not challenge the authority figures they've come to revere (even if they despise them at the same time).

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The reason it doesn't apply to someone like Nancy Pelosi is because she is simply not seen as an authority figure (most liberals wouldn't be seen thusly because it is authoritarian behavior that elicits authoritarian following). If you haven't read Bob Altemeyer's work on the subject (home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/), I highly recommend it. It really explains the fundamental social science at work in the partisan divide going back, possibly forever. I would go so far as to say that the defining attribute of what "conservatives" and centrists call "The Hard Left", at least in this case, is a deep skepticism of authority, whoever they may be (which is why everyone who resists authoritarian following they see as not like them, i.e. "a leftist"). Whereas those "conservatives" and centrists who recoil at the thought of holding the (authoritarian) war criminals to account all fall somewhere to the right on the RWA scale.