Glenn Greenwald wrote:

We have an extremely healthy and Serious Pundit class, particularly its leading war cheerleaders, and I think we should all be proud of our political discourse.

I write:

Mr. Greenwald, I've read most of your columns over more than the last year. I read a lot, and don't always have time to decipher the sarcasm. Could you just say exactly what you mean? I think it would help me get the intent of your column.

For example:

We have an extremely disfunctional and frivolous Pundit class, particularly its leading war cheerleaders, and I think we should all be ashamed of our political discourse.

I admire your analysis of things, Mr. Greenwald. Thank you for doing what you do.

Thanks.

You must have noticed from last night's comments that you have been missed...

About your comment before this one... perhaps we could persuade you to parodize Ozymandias for us, now that you are freshly traveled, wined and dined?

with hubris like "Tell me where I've been misled by my sources.", you're just begging to be cut off at the knees.

Kind of like Tom DeLay daring us to prove he's a crook.

of that odious "journalistic" species of tough-talking and moralistic chickenhawk apologists for and suckups to people in positions of authority who will excuse any and all abuses of power because they need to believe in the myth of American exceptionalism, because their daddy said that we were a great and perfect country and their daddy couldn't be wrong, could he, or else their entire worldview collapses. An insecure and self-loathing nitwit posing as a thoughtful and wise reporter, with sage beard and all, who deep down stands for and believes in nothing but his own self-preservation, and wants nothing more than to be patted on the head by authority figures and told "Good boy, good boy, here's a cookie!". He absolutely OOZES idiotic insecurity on a level that makes Chris Matthews look brilliant and brave. A total poser and fake who fancies himself a thoughtful pundit and insightful sage, much as Bush fancies himself a tough cowboy rancher because he posed for a couple of photos on his fake dude ranch.

We have to not only ridicule these assholes. We have to destroy them as credible "journalists" and pundits. As much as we have to go after the bottom-feeding "media" organizations that pay them to spout their vile inanity, as well as threaten and displace them with more credible emerging alternative media outlets, we have to go after the people who actually do this. What was done to Rather, Donahue and Banfield MUST be done to creeps like Klein, Williams and Stephanopoulos. Let them go work for Fox or the Moonie Times or some other wingnut fake news propaganda outfit. But discredit them as legitimate journalists and pundits on what passes for today's mainstream media. If one's local supermarket carried brands like "Red Man" and "Sambo", we'd go after them and force them to take such products off their shelves. I see absolutely no difference when it comes to the media. We need to make it painful to be, and hire, jerks like Klein, who are the media equivalent of offensive and stupid products.

What an ass Klein is. Literally nothing that he says is true, or makes sense. One can almost smell the crap in his pants as he continues to perplexingly suck up to the far right and condone its every atrocity, like some beaten-down lapdog who fears another beating.

Okay, then, I can go for a ride, this place is in the best of hands. Bye all, and thanks for putting up with me for a while. After all, the boon of kings... something, tumpity tum, lightly given, yeah... or something. Bye.

We have a Spandau. It's called Fox News, the Moonie Times and the Rush Limbaugh Comedy Hour. Does anyone with a functioning brain still take them seriously anymore? We need to make the public realize that these are not legitimate sources of news and opinion, media jokes that only sad and desperate has-beens and morons like Klein end up at as the final stage of their devolution from human being to blubbering pile of amorphous ooze.

Reading the linked post by Joke Line, when I got to the"tell me how I've been misled" part, I began thinking, how would Glen respond? I didn't have long to wait for the answer. Great post as usual.

Its over 6 years old. I'm not sure that

a)There were any of the major Guantanamo abuses underway at that point

or

b) Whether Joe was lied to by sources, or just pulled the column whole from thin air.

This might not be the best example of Klein getting taken in.

I guess there's no way to say this without sounding like a suck-up, but here goes.

We are reading a serialized enterprise in muckraking in the classical sense of American journalism, the equivalent in many respects of Lincoln Steffens' "Shame of the Cities", I.F. Stone's pieces on McCarthyism and the Vietnam War, Ida Tarbell's "The History of the Standard Oil Company", or Jacob Riis's "How The Other Half Lives". This time, however, the subject of the relentless exposition of corruption and degradation isn't the neglect of our inner cities, or rapacious, unchecked capitalism, or the shame of a nation that would tolerate persistent poverty amid great wealth. This time the subject is journalism itself, or rather the corruption of the courtesans of power in this country masquerading as journalists.

Like the best muckrakers, Glenn is conducting a pitiless examination of an utterly corrupt and malignant institution, consumed by self-importance and dedicated primarily to preserving its prerogatives. At his best, Glenn reveals how the work of the Kleins and Kristols et al is not just a bastardized or debased form of journalism, but is actually antithetical to journalism, and in some senses simply a negation of journalism.

I haven't checked, but I assume readers of Glenn's blog are over at The Swampland this very moment tearing Joke Line a new one, letting him know that we know what a charlatan he is. With our help, maybe Glenn's work can force a re-examination of our corporate media that will actually result in change, and perhaps even a revolution in the corporate media. You never know. It wouldn't the first time a muckraker has forced the shame of an entire industry into the light of day and forced the nation to demand change.