Prof. Smith,

Your note leaves me questions about your qualifications. Do you have any at all?

-Arun

PS: If I left it there, I'd be doing exactly what you did, which is not address anything of substance. I see two substantial questions in your note, one regarding qualifications and the second regarding style.

Are qualifications relevant? Are qualifications necessary to know that a job was poorly done (no matter how hard the job is or what qualifications it takes to do the job)? The answer is - in general, no. I know my car was not fixed, the quarterback played poorly, the food tastes lousy, the music or movie was bad, etc., etc., (gasp) the President made a poor decision to invade Iraq without being qualified to do any of those things.

Division of labor and specialization is possible precisely because of this property of the world - you do not have to have qualifications to know whether something is done poorly or not. If I needed to hire an expert to tell me whether another expert has done his job, then you see I have an infinite regress of experts. How do I tell whether the hired expert has done his job - hire another one?

Is Glenn Greenwald unjustified in his style? - vitriolic, you termed it. Well, we've wrongly invaded a country, worsened our problem with terrorism, lost habeas corpus and the 4th Amendment, suffered through two terms of George Bush in part because of the lousy job done by people like John King. When thousands die, are wounded, and millions become refugees as a consequence of journalists not being skeptical of government only vitriol is appropriate. Perhaps a journalism-war-crimes tribunal is even more appropriate.

Maybe if the reasoning power of our journalism professors was better, we wouldn't have John Kings.

They are all the same.

Dana Bash, Candy Crawley, Wolf Blitzer, et al.

They all have a cozy little club of incompetent fawning reporters and pundits at CNN.

And if you are not part of their elite club of punditry, or dare to criticize their brilliance, they hold you in contempt.

Long live the blogosphere for revealing the truth about these fools!!

...sounds like this: Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.

He's right. Political journalists may not live in the ivory tower they cover, but they don't mind walking up to it and dry-humping it once in a while.

Thanks yet again, Glenn.

Tim Tagaris has a post up at Open Left on FISA.

The FISA Trial Balloon Goes Pop? What's next ...

by: Tim Tagaris

Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 12:48:18 PM EST

(Once again, I no longer work for Chris Dodd and post here as an unemployed DFH -- Tim

When the Senate returns from Christmas break next week, a large question still lingers: what will become of FISA?

When we last heard from our intrepid defenders of the Constitution, they were floating the idea of an 18-month extension of the FISA, sans retroactive immunity.

Best I can tell today, that was little more than a trial balloon ... and one that just might be about to burst as the clock ticks towards next Tuesday. (continues)

"When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff."

-Cicero

Glenn,

1) John King claims that the purpose of the interview was to get McCain's thoughts on the economy. Strangely, none of the so-called "questions" had anything to do with the economy.

2) It is weird what he considers a tough question. To him, it is about asking McCain about cheating on his math test. He doesn't seem to understand the difference between a tough question and a "gossippy" question.

Bob

I was in the infantry, stationed at Ft. Drum, NY, right before Iraq kicked off. President Bush visited the post and gave a speech. Pretty much every soldier on post was herded onto a big field to provide a nice photo op for the President. This was the speech wherein somebody yelled: “When are we gonna get Saddam!” and there was much cheering. I guarantee that whoever yelled that was a pogue, and his job when the metal hit the meat was going to be somewhere ‘right behind’ the actual combat troops. My point is very few of the guys who were actually going to be kicking in doors were “droolingly eager to "go kick some sand ni**er butt.”

But even if they had been, why less sympathy for troops who are eager to do their job? Why put “troops” in scare quotes?

... that Glenn is a helluva lot better looking.

Mr. King doesn't let things roll off, does he? A pretty defensive missive for a reporter with "20 plus years" in the biz.

But I did not take Mr. Greenwald's original commentary as a particular criticism of Mr. King only. Mr. Greenwald was commenting on the larger issue of fluff journalism.

However, since Mr. King felt the need to explain himself, one must ask: Did he accomplish what he states was his original intent? Er, no.

If he has other, more substantive questions and answers, why did he leave them on the cutting room floor?

Mr. King is looking at this only from his own perspective as an insider, both to his own job and toward the political campaigns. But the viewer only knows what Mr. King presents.

And what he presents ain't much.

i don't really feel like i'm arguing with you bystander, so "last words" don't matter to me.

i'm simply making the (perhaps mute) point that ...

you are what you eat

be the change you want to see

those with glass houses shouldn't be the first to throw stones

"you" the person, bystander, may excel in your ability to be transparent and aligned in how you ethically address corporate/institutional corruption. god bless you for it. others, like john king, clearly have failed in this regard. there are hoards and hoards of folks like me who are in the middle. having standards and demanding change can work sometimes ... but there are other tactics that don't get people's reactivity (and therefore defensiveness) on alert. inflammatory e-mails, comments, radio programs, etc., etc. tend to get more attention. sometimes those who decry journalistic failures embody the exact some problem they decry. sometimes people are addicted to reactivity/turbulence and don't even realize it.

people who like to or need to fight tend to need enemies. sometimes those enemies are manufactured, with severe consequences. sometimes being confrontational and direct, with compassion and understanding, can be very healing for all involved. i'm inviting you and others here to be self-reflective. maybe you don't need that. if so, i applaud you.