bustardblog

Glenn V. Rahm, Part Deux

In retrospect, my post on Glenn Greenwald's attack on Rahm Emanuel was a little too flip. Part of a comment that I received yesterday on my post says

I thought Rahm was an oily operative before Greenwald repeated what I already knew to be the truth about Foley.

What Greenwald did in order to attack Emanuel was to muddy the facts - both about what was known "to be the truth about Foley,"" and about the definition of a lie. 

Greenwald is proud to be an accomplished lawyer, yet in his post he wants us to believe, as Talk Left so aptly put it, that he is an "ingenue."

In his post Greenwald points to an interview Emanuel had with Stephanopolous back when the Foley story just broke. In it Emanuel was repeatedly quizzed about his knowledge of the e-mails Foley sent to pages. Emanuel carefully replies that he never saw them.

Greenwald concludes that  "Emanuel was clearly and deliberately misleading," and so is "guilty of the same thing, Exactly the same thing" as Hastert's Chief of Staff who has been "telling" "blatant lies" "ever since this scandal began."

In fact it is Greewald's post which is "deliberately misleading." Here's why:

1. As Talk Left put it "In every meaningful sense of the word, Emanuel ducked the question in order not to lie.  Ducking the question is not lying .... In any meaningful sense Glenn has misstated the meaning of lying."

2. Greenwald is sure that Emanuel lied, because of a CNN report which was based on the word of an un-named campaign committee aide.  Greenwald writes that the report stated that the

"Illinois Democrat was informed in 2005, but never saw the correspondence and did not have enough information to raise concerns. The aide said that Emanuel took no action because his knowledge was "cursory" and little more than 'rumor.'"

This is Greenwald's own description of the report.  In order to conclude that Emanuel is lying, Greenwald has to cherry pick from this uncorroborated report from an un-named source. Greenwald embraces the aide's conclusion that Emanuel was "informed in 2005" but rejects the aide's characterization of the information as "cursory and little more than rumor." And there was plenty of rumor.

3. Greenwald again tries to play the ingenue when he writes that "Any reasonable person would have come away from the interview (as I know I did) with the strong impression that Emanuel... had no reason to know anything was amiss with Foley until ABC broke the story." Accusations had started to float around Washington in 2003 and 2004 about Foley's behavior. Greenwald is far too smart not to know that such rumors fly around Washington at the speed of light.  There is no way any sentient Congressman had no suspicion that there might be something "amiss with Foley." In March 2005 one D.C. Blogger warned about Foley "If he cruises you in the bathrooms of Congress, Ignore him!". He also wrote in a headline:  "Read about how Mark Foley hit on men less than half his age at the Republican Convention." In another post; "A source has confirmed with blogACTIVE that Foley lives a practically out lifestyle at his Florida residence, often seen entertaining gay men, some of who the source described as "close to underage." This is not some obscure blogger: GQ magazine has done a piece on him, and Glenn Greenwald himself  has written extensively about him on his own blog. Even my commenter, with whose quote I started this piece, 'already knew the truth about Foley.' Somehow, Greenwald didn't, and neither, he implies, did the rest of Congress.

Near the conclusion of his piece, Greenwald writes about Emanuel:

"he sat there on ABC and adopted this melodramatically concerned, earnest voice, as he expressed righteous outrage."

If you substitute "he sat there on ABC..." with "he opined on his blog..." you've done a pretty good job of describing the sanctimonious Glenn Greenwald.

 

Glenn Greenwald

Is there anyway to get Glenn to tone it down a notch? Clearly brilliant, and a great writer, it would be great if one could characterize  Glenn as "shrill", like Paul Krugman - but I'm afraid you have to describe him as over-the-top. His tendency to exaggeration and gross generalization will eventually lessen the effectiveness of his voice, which would really be a shame.

Eschaton linked to Greenwald's piece on D.C. Pundits, and called it a "well deserved spanking."  It's not.

Glenn's post condemns the inside-the Beltway pundit class in pretty strong terms, calling them "corrupt to their core and always wrong." He said that they had "no core convictions and no passion." Their worldview is "as inaccurate as it is "bereft of integrity and principle." The immediate prompt for this outrage was Russ Feingold's recent announcement that he would not run for President in 2008, which proved conclusively that anyone who wondered if his call for the censure of Bush was possibly the result of a careful political calculation, was both corrupt and stupid.

Glenn was outraged on this AP coverage of Feingold's call for Bush's censure:

While only two Democrats in the Senate have embraced Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush, the idea is increasing his standing among many Democratic voters as he ponders a bid for the party's presidential nomination in 2008.

That sentence is entirely accurate. But Glenn uses a slightly deceptive gambit to make his point: "Feingold obviously hadn't decided to run for President and apparently wasn't planning on it."

But he sure was considering it. He set up a PAC. If you check out Google you'll find at least 15 different sites that were promoting Russ for 2008. He traveled to New Hampshire and Iowa. That famed Washington insider Joel McNally, writing for the Madison [WI] Capital Times and quoted by Common Dreams asked "Of course, if Feingold weren't already leaning toward becoming a candidate, why would a Wisconsin senator be campaigning in Florida?"  Another leading paper in the punditocracy, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted that "In the aftermath of his re-election, [Feingold] "maintained a campaign of five in Wisconsin, including two fund-raisers." In it's cover story on Feingold, who it named  Man of the Year, The Madison Magazine quoted the Senator as saying "Being president, running for president, I am very mixed about whether that's the right thing for me."

It is not outrageous for any observer, be they from D.C., or from Madison, or commuting between Brazil and Manhattan, to wonder about the Presidential aspirations of someone behaving as Feingold did.  If Feingold was the entirely uncalculating, American-heartland naif that Greenwald wishes to convince us he is; we'd be in big trouble.

Commenting on the request for Censure, Firedoglake approvingly noted a comment from Pachacutec who had written "I think this is very smart work on Feingold's part. I'm impressed with his ability to mix principle and aggression with canny politics."

Greenwald has the aggression part down pat, and he believes in his principles, although I am concerned that he let's his anger take him over the line. I see no signs of the canny politics part.

Crashing Civilizations

My post of yesterday essentially condemned the ideas attributed to Pope Benedict, and especially those espoused by Jonah Goldberg regarding the Muslim world.

I received a few comments that helped me clarify my thoughts on the issue. The first comments suggested that I actually read a speech given by Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury -  a speech which has been described as supportive  of anti-Muslim arguments and of the comments made by the Pope.  In fact, the speech in no way confirms such a posture - quite the opposite.

Another comment was from the loyal Rick, who argued that we have long been in a war of civilizations; a war in which we are completely innocent, and that "Islam was spread at the point of a sword, and will be settled at the barrel of an Abrams M1 A1."  Although he is completely wrong in his arguments, I do admire Rick for his honesty in stating the logical conclusion to his statements. The Goldbergs and Malkins of the world merely pass out bromides about "standing up" to Islam, or "confronting" it. It would be even more impressive if Rick were to tell us how many Muslims would have to eliminated in order to stop them from conquering the West. Clearly, the spiral of death in Iraq only grows wider and larger the longer we are there. Rick sees the war as ongoing and unavoidable.

Goldberg, like so many on the right, and like Bush himself, gain personal rewards by being provocative. They earn money, maintain power, and stroke their egos by provoking Islam. It's deeply cynical, and if they believed what they said, seriously dangerous behavior.

Israeli War Crimes

Amnesty International has accused Israel of War Crimes in it's recents actions in Lebanon.

The United Nations has reported that five Lebanese children have been killed while picking up the  little bombs that are always left behind when cluster bombs are dropped, as thousands were by Israel in the past weeks.

Tragically, yesterday a member of the Israeli Defense Force was killed in Lebanon, and a few others severely wounded, by landmines that the IDF had left there during a previous occupation of the country.

In 1997, when a anti-landmine protocol was adopted in Ottawa by 121 countries, Israel was not one of them.

Poohline

Assrocket of Poohline has a hilarious spoof of himself posted today. He claims to have spent 40 minutes in a somewhat private meeting with Bush  - in fact, it was the most inspiring 40 minutes of his political career, but he was unable to provide specifics. None, but dub-ya did talk a lot about freedom.

The rocket delights in the fatuousness -

"I have never seen a politician speak so evidently from the heart, about big issues--freedom, most of all."

And then skirts dangerously close to the Orwellian truth -

"His persona is very much that of the big brother."

If Dub-ya had not had such Oedipal problems, he'd be happily running a summer golf camp in Florida for teen-aged guys. Perhaps the Assrocket would be head counselor. Then it would not matter that neither of them knows the difference between a human "right" and an "issue."

What Happened?

The bustards are not particularly summertime birds. It's not about fahrenheit; we can adjust.  But being told which seasons are supposed to be fun is hard for us. We don't listen.

Thespis Bustard has posted some new comments on the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Thespis appreciates your response; now go buy tickets,

I am still trying to make sense of the Liebermann and  Lamont business in CT. Nat Hentoff is basically calling Atrios and Kos anti-semites. Somehow a Selectman from Greenwich CT whose first name is "Ned", yes, "Ned," is a terrifying radical.  Hentoff received payment for his behavior from the  Reverend Son of God, and Ex-Convict, Moon.  Republicans who want to challenge Republican Senators who have strayed off the reservation, are just fine.(see Laffey v Chafee in RI) Democrats who challenge Democrats on issues like the war are radical nut jobs.

Did I miss anything?

Where's The Raid?

Tomorrow both the Thespis Bustard, and yours truly, will be back to blogging.  In the meantime, please explain why you failed to remove George Bush from his infestation of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Viva Ned!

Sorry that travelling has prevented me from writing posts as I would like.

I do want to mention how sweet is Lamont’s victory.

I especially credit Atrios, and Kos, as well as other bloggers from the side of the good, who refused to listen to all the negativity of the punditocracy.

If one had any doubts about Lieberman, he put them to rest this morning when he said to Matt Lauer:

I am committed to this campaign, to a different kind of politics, to bringing the Democratic Party back from Ned Lamont, Maxine Waters to the mainstream, and for doing something for the people of Connecticut.

Karl Rove could not have dreamt of a better sentence. Joe would save us from the radicals.  He will be sure that our country is safe from the poorest, least powerful amongst us. He will remind us that South Central L.A.is the real threat to us.

The problem is Rep. Waters, not DeLay, nor Ney. No, Joe will align himself with a real "bi-partisan" approach. He will work "constructively" with Republicans who are so far to the right that they choose not to be described as Conservative. That adjective of choice for Ronald Reagan is too soft and liberal for them - hence, they choose to be called "Neo-Cons." 

Joe must meet them "half-way", even though that "half-way" is a sundae of complete compitulation, topped off be a Mafioso kiss.

I do hope that Joe does not eat too many sweets

Mel Gibson: Anti-Semite

Mel Gibson's recent brush with the law is quite instructive in the ways of wing-nuts - their method  is to try to distort truth from every angle. In the end, their fervent hope is to  have so confused you that the truth cannot be found.
Cleverly avoiding truth: Michelle Malkin writes "Very Awful. If True." So, which is it Ms Malkin?
Dean Esmay bears in on the truth "...But Holy Crap..." and then his first link is to a  site supportive of Gibson .
Like many others, Malkin and Esmay avoid making judgment - as they wait for the dust to settle. To condemn Gibson too early, would potentially anger their base; to grant a pardon to Mr. Gibson too quickly would make their attempt to seem not anti-Semitic appear as hollow as it really is. Hypocrisy takes work. 

Hubris & Incompetence, Part 6,412

Her Highness is unsure when she will return to the Mid-East.

"I do think it is important that groundwork be laid so I can make the most of whatever time I can spend there." (emphasis added)

Of course, as the entire world knows, she wants to give Israel time to do more damage in Southern Lebanon.

But when our ally, Israel, or anyone else, says this out loud - it's an outrage.

Rice's spokesman, Adam Ereli, took strong issue with an assertion by Israel's Justice Minister Haim Ramon, who said the failure of world leaders to call for an immediate cease-fire at a summit in Rome gave Israel a green light to carry on with its campaign to crush Hezbollah.

"Any such statement is outrageous," Ereli said. "The United States is sparing no effort to bring a durable and lasting end to this conflict."

Bush's little "Condi" is as arrogant as she is insulting. Her stupid, blatant lies are an embrassment to our country, and harmful to the advancement of peace.