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• Monday, January 5, 2009 01:11 PM

  Freelancer1211

  Andrew Sullivan recently said he thinks you have "...less fear than any journalist I know in Washington." He said this right after your post yesterday about Israel and Gaza (which he appears to agree with.)

  Which makes me curious. Have there been any personal or professional repercussions for what you've written, aside from bigoted rants?

  I'm ambivalent about that. It is definitely true that criticizing Israel will subject you to far more attacks than almost anything else you can do as a political writer -- both in terms of quantity and intensity. One thing that distinguishes the backlash is that it comes from all sides, including people who typically support what you do. My email inbox from the last week -- not to mention other columns and blogs -- contain more angry attacks on me than I've received in a long time, maybe ever, including from lots and lots of people who are generally supportive.

  At the same time, I've also received a huge amount of supportive email and other communications, including from lots of writers and other people for whom I have a huge amount of respect.

  Ultimately, there are a lot worse things in life than having people send you mean emails and write mean things about you on the Internet. I honestly don't consider it brave to incur that, even though it's true that lots of people will avoid saying things in order to avoid those outcomes.

  As for lost opportunities and the like -- who knows? There's no way to know what offer you end up not getting as a result of something you say or write. But I think it's pretty clear that I never worry about any of that. I would hate what I did if I ever let those kinds of concerns limit what I do. I've worked hard to make sure I don't really have to rely on staying in the good graces of anyone to continue to do what I do. My relationship is directly with the people who read me and as long as I write honestly and without restraining myself out of concern over who I might be offending, I'm confident that that's what will enable me to keep doing what I'm doing, how I want to do it, and that approach has been working out quite well so far.

  I think "bravery" means being afraid of a particular outcome and doing something despite the fear. I don't really have any fear of consequences over what I write, so -- no false modesty intended -- I honestly don't consider it "brave."

  —GlennGreenwald Read GlennGreenwald's other letters
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