Covert vs. Classified

http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/archives/2005/11/06/covert-vs-classified/

If I caught Glenn Greenwald compromising his integrity like that I’d stop paying attention to what he wrote

If you had no integrity yourself it wouldn't bother you one bit. You'd think it was a selling point. If you were as guilty as sin and he was your lawyer, your advocate, you'd be glad he was as duplicitous and mendacious as you, until you both went to jail. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. Rarely, in fact. These people are rarely held accountable, as Sysprog's instance of the Steel tycoon is one of far too many examples.

I just watched the interview and thought it was a fiasco. My guess is that Gore agreed to be interviewed about his new book and Ifill tried and failed to turn it into an interview about his running for president. Gore is not even strolling for president so why did she annoy him?

He is there to talk about his book. She's a hack.

Re: Tom Maguire's Just One Minute...

Just one minute is all I can stand of Maguire, Ifill, most of these hacks...

Being a mere disnformation agent means never having to say you're wrong, let alone sorry.

Bravo, Glenn, for trying to hold their feet to the fire on their fact-phobic reaction to the truth about Plame's status. But I don't think your ridicule will gain any more purchase than reality has.

Something I think we need to keep in mind here is that making up their own "facts" is a strategy without a downside for these folks -- especially the right wing bloggers. When they made their mess of "Hummelgate," both branches of the decision tree were good for their heroes in Administration: if they were (by dumb luck) right, it's Rathergate all over again, and the left is discredited. If it turns out that they were wrong, well, no problem. Some mainstream sources will give them a pass; others will tut-tut about those untrustworthy bloggers. The difference between the Glenns -- Greenwald vs. Reynolds -- is a subtlety far beyond most reporters. A blogger is a blogger is a blogger. And because (in reality) our side of the blogosphere is sui generis, while their half is a largely redundant echo chamber, anything that damages the credibility of blogs hurts us more than it does them.

So what an exciting game for the right wing blogs -- every enter is a winner!

What a slimy bunch of lying shits. Kudos Glenn...keep up the accountability drum...Somehow we need to publicly embarrass these clowns. This is how 59 million Americans could be so stupid.

anything that damages the credibility of blogs hurts us more than it does them.

What your're saying may be true in the short term, but in the grand scheme of things, truth DOES matter. Don't forget that every time that Deborah Howell or Howie Kurtz clears their throat, there's a swarm of commenters on hand to offer their interpretation. In such an environment, it is rather easy to tell the participants from the hacks.

(look how quickly ChillyDogg devolved to a profanity spewing moron with just one criticism)

Especially now that we know Fitzgerald's investigation was entirely aware that Valerie Plame was a covert agent, it is preplexing to me that there have been no charges brought against the individuals known to have divulged her covert identity. I know the standard explanation is that such charges could not be brought because of Scooter Libby's obstruction, but I surely can't see why not. That seems a very weak excuse to me, and it makes no sense at all. I think this angle needs a lot more exploration.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, you've got to get his new book The Assault on Reason. As the title suggests, it confronts the entire panoply of speciousness and mendacity that has consumed the nation for the past five or so years.

It's loaded with not only recent examples of manipulation, fear-mongering, and power-grabbing, but also great quotes from the founders on how much importance they placed on an informed and rational public debate.

Gore is the first major figure outside of the blogs to make all of the criticism that have been coming out of the blogosphere, which is probably why he's getting treated by the media the same way that they treat the blogs.

Gore articulates very well just how endangered democracy is and the need to make some fundamental changes or else we're going lose this country.

DClaw alluded to the quotes, here are a few - the book is full of great quotes:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" - Thomas Jefferson

"Any who act as if freedom's defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America" - President Eisenhower

"We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason" - Edward R. Murrow

But probably my favorite quote in the book is this one:

"The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist." - Winston Churchill

Gore also uses (actually recycles) a Churhill quote to criticize the administration for failing to address the reality of global warming. It's nice to see Churchill put to some good use instead of being used as a cartoon by authoritarians who invoke his name to do the very thing he said was "the foundation of all totalitarian government."

And then there's stuff like this

The progressive abandonment of concern for reason or evidence has required the administration to develop a highly effective propaganda machine with which it attempts to embed in the public mind mythologies that grow out of one central doctrine upon which all the special interests agree: government is very bad and should be done away with as much as possible - except the parts of it that redirect money through big congrtracts to industries that havewon their way in the inner circle.

This coalition gains access to the public through a cabal of pundits, commentators, and "reporters" - call it the Limbaugh-Hannity-Drudge axis. This fifth cloumn in the fourth estate is made up of propagandists pretending to be journalists. Through multiple overlapping outletscovering radio, television, and the Internet, they relentlessly force-feed the American people right-wing talking points and ultra-conservative dogma disguised as news and infotainment - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It is quite a spectacle.

Indeed.