How can I be shocked when I'm not even surprised? My last couple of posts have looked at wing-nut blogs and noted how debased many of them are.
And yet I am shocked at the absolutely dishonest the attacks on Glenn Greenwald's post regarding an e-mail he believes he received from a Petraeus spokesman. Greenwald had written a post concerning the politicization of the military, and the e-mail he got purported to be a response to it.
Bluto was a leader of the pack in attacking Greenwald. He caught the elusive Greenwald when he "forwarded the e-mail he says he received from Colonel Steve A. Boylan." His post is titled "Full Text of Email Reveals Greenwald Mischaracterizations." Except in fact nothing was "forwarded." The second sentence of Greenwald's post included the link:
"the email - which I am publishing in full, unedited form here"
Bluto wrote that
The parts that Greenwald chose not to publish tend to contradict his characterization of the e-mail as "bizarre" and "unsolicited"
and that
Greenwald has also redacted the parts of the email that highlight his shoddy research
There are no "parts" that he did not publish. Whether or not the e-mail was bizarre is of course a judgment call - but I would consider it so. And of course the e-mail itself states that it is a comment on a post - not a response to a solicitation. Nothing was redacted. And one of the passages from Boylan's email that Greenwald did quote began "You are either too lazy to do the research on the topics to gain the facts..." It should be hard to accuse Greenwald of hiding Boylan's low opinion of his research, but Bluto does it anyway.
Greenwald made it completely clear that he was selecting passages which he thought supported his thesis of politicization in the armed service - and Bluto's posts is nothing more than a lie.
But his supporters didn't care. My petjawa wrote that Greenwald had "edited the e-mail to his best advantage." But after being contacted by Greenwald, he proudly admitted that he had never read the post. Jules Crittendon also brags of attacking without reading. The fact free LittleGreenFootballs accused him of having "now pulled another mendacious move."
It's not that the right can't read. The problem is that they refuse to. Any attack on a leftie is always right. Facts are not relevant.
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