You weren't speaking to me, but I don't get this at all. What is the difference between the two? I'm not trying to be tiresome, I just really don't see it.

"Telling [me] what to write" is a construction Glenn uses a lot when he gets this very common criticism - which you can see in Chris Dowd's comment, if not your own.

Questioning Glenn's premises and his arguments is interesting, and substantive, and happens all the time here. Questioning his choice of topics is just not that interesting. What is there to say about it, other than "I wish you would write about topic X?" That's not really far from "telling [Glenn] what to write," when you think about it.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse. You're obviously thoughtful about these issues, and despite the fact that I'm having a hell of a time following you today, I am interested in reading more about how you see the world.

Maybe the difference is more subtle than I thought. Let me try to clarify.

When Greenwald wrote about Prop 8 a few days ago, and repealing DOMA, that did not interest me. I'm sympathetic to gays who want to marry (and I think they have a damn strong constitutional argument for equal rights under the law), but since I don't live in California, it just seemed like a distant topic. But it NEVER occurred to me to write Greenwald and criticize his choice of topic. Certainly, there were "more important" issues that day by various standards (for example, I think a bomb went off in Iraq that killed a quite a few people, not to mention that America had just elected a black president, etc.), but hey, it's Greenwald's blog. He can pick his topics, and I've never uttered a word of complaint before.

Now, since we're a little too close to this issue, let's leave Emanuel alone for a second and hypothesize another scenario.

Let's imagine that McCain had won the election (shudder), and had picked as his Chief of Staff Charles Krauthammer.

It would appear to be perfectly reasonable to expect Greenwald, and other bloggers who have been vocal on discredited war supporters like Krauthammer, to comment on this.

We readers might wait with some anticipation for their response.

A few days later, Greenwald does indeed post an essay with Krauthammer in the headline. But instead of addressing this rather interesting topic with significant (it would seem) national and international repercussions, Greenwald spends several pages talking about a tangential matter: How author Christopher Buckley had gone on Fresh Air to hock his new book and told Terry Gross that, in Buckley's opinion, McCain had picked Krauthammer just to twist the knife now that Buckley had been ousted at National Review.

"But Glenn", we'd all holler in unison, "you missed it! Don't you see that the neocons now have a high level man in the McCain administration? I mean, sure, Chris Buckley just embarrassed himself with his conspiracy theory on Fresh Air, and that's fun and all, but you've REALLY missed the boat here!"

Would that be "telling Greenwald what to write"? Well, in a very specific sense, yes. We wanted him to attack or defend the Krauthammer pick, instead of effectively ignoring it. And sure, he still might hit it in a few days. Or he might not.

But the sense one would get, given the long and careful article Greenwald DID write about Buckley and Terry Gross, is that Greenwald HAD considered the Krauthammer pick carefully, and decided that the only important thing he had to say about it concerned the off-the-cuff comment of a pundit. In that case, it would be perfectly reasonable to raise some hell on the threads, because ignoring the pick appears equivalent to endorsing it.

Now, you may not agree with me that the Rahm Emanuel pick is a big deal. I'm obviously more upset by it than you are. You may even agree with the man's views on the war, and feel no trepidation about his influence on Obama's version of the White House Bubble. Greenwald implicitly has now said as much in his response to me ("I don't think it's revealling or interesting"; I'm paraphrasing).

Which is all fine, I can't make people agree with me or care. But I'm not going to be quiet about it either. Greenwald took a shot and he really missed it. I think that shows that his priorities and/or judgment are out of whack, and I said so.

I think that is quantitatively and qualitatively different than telling a blogger "what to post about".

Does any of that help? Maybe my error was assuming other people cared about Rahm Emanuel and would intuit my "ignoring is endorsing" sentiment. It appears that most people here are not as exercised, but warning bells are ringing elsewhere in the antiwar community.

Even assuming that you were correct, even if Greenwald's column had been about something really silly, condescension is probably not the best method of persuasion. It tells us that your primary concern is about being right over actually wanting better journalism. Even when we do not explicitly understand this, we pick up on it and respond. I myself have been guilty of this blunder. But I have to be reminded of it by reading the comments of others.

You can read my response to Greenwald above to get a better understanding of my point. I don't back down from that point at all.

But you're right: I should not have included that condescending line, and I regret that. It IS true that I have been disappointed by the snide responses I've gotten, given that I've tried to write intelligently and respectfully in all cases. Disappointment is a different animal than condescension, though, and by going there I only lowered the level of discourse.