The source of the problem lies in our willingness to tolerate "credibility" as a test of worthiness.
The links provide the substance of the conflict, and the commentary, particularly by the granddaughter of independent journalist I. F. Stone, is insightful (even more, I think than Greenwald's) on part of the issue at hand.
the main thing I took away from the discussion is that for journalists like Klein the world is divided into practitioners/insiders and totally ignorant outsiders. He was surprised that I brought up the Solomon story, or that I took seriously the Judy Miller issue, because in his world that's really inside baseball. In fact when I pointed out how abysmal the Washington Post's editorial page had been, under Fred Hiatt's tenure, he and another Journalist standing nearby assured me that Fred is an “editorialist” so the ordinary rules don't apply and I don't need to tar the whole paper with his sins. Its as thought they imagine that each story is a stand alone piece and that there's a hard and fast line between opinion and “fact” when every day, and every way, we've seen any pretense to that distinction run right into the ground. Has any adult person thought that since Media Whores Online (of sainted memory?).
Two points here. First, the whole insider/outsider business is actually quite amusing, albeit sad. In Klein's world, indeed in the world of most of our elites in politics and its related professions (not including prostitution, I think), the techonocratic insistence that our politics is far too complex for the great unwashed to understand and therefore comment on properly (bloggers don't have editors!!) might have made me ask Joe, had I been there, "So, Joe, if no one but you experts understand this shit, why do you have the job you do? Who do you write for, or are you just jerking off?"
Second, the mythical line between "journalism" and "editorializing" exists only in the heads of people like Klein and others like him. Editorial judgments effect every part of a newspaper, from what stories are reported to how sources are evaluated to the final copy. Everyone knows it.
I find it amusing that Klein is revealed, yet again, as having extremely thin skin.
For the past several years, Greenwald has conducted a persistent, malicious campaign to distort who I am and where I stand. He is a mean-spirited, graceless bully. During that time, I have never seen him write a positive sentence about the US military, which has transformed itself dramatically for the better since Rumsfeld's departure (indeed, he ridiculed me when I reported that the situation in Anbar Province was turning around in 2007). I have never seen him acknowledge that the work of the clandestine service—performed disgracefully by the CIA during the early Bush years—is an absolute necessity in a world where terrorists have the capability to attack us at any time, in almost any place. Nor have I seen [him] acknowledge that such a threat exists, nor make a single positive suggestion about how to confront that threat in ways that might conform to his views. Therefore, I have seen no evidence that he cares one whit about the national security of the United States. It is not hyperbole, it is a fact.
The central criticism Greenwald leveled at Klein originally was the revelation by Klein that he had not actually read a piece of legislation he was insisting said something it did not in fact say. When Greenwald called him out, not only on his intellectual dishonesty but his professional laziness as well, Klein tried to backpedal, while refusing to grant Greenwald's main point, i.e., that by misrepresenting the bill in question, and refusing to acknowledge that he, Klein, had not read the bill and should therefore be disqualified from commenting on it in the guise of an expert. The entire dust-up was amusing, and Klein has now revealed himself as a bitter, grudge-holding small-minded, thin-skinned child.
Yet, there is more at stake here than an argument among a few folks over journalistic ethics. In a world where people were serious about the question of whether information was true or false, Klein's many, many errors of both fact and judgment would have disqualified him years ago from consideration as a serious commenter, far less serious than Glenn Greenwald (whom, I should note, I also criticized yesterday) or even a "nobody" blogger.
Yet, Klein maintains his position not because of class or even his insider status. For reasons that have far more to do with what the currency of our current journalistic and political culture than anything else, Klein maintains "credibility" in the absence of any question regarding consistency (his output over the years actually follows a pretty predictable pattern of fawning obeisance followed by harsh criticism of the former object of his political affection, with occasional outbursts of sanity interspersed with a dedication to whatever passes for momentary conventional wisdom) or even attention to something as trivial as factual accuracy, let alone non-trivial as the truth. While class status and his professional status as an insider - a player of the game - certainly contribute to his on-going presence in our public discourse, after nearly two decades of his abuse of our patience, one would think he would currently be editing obituaries somewhere, rather than playing a game in which he pretends to talk about stuff he doesn't understand, and we don't get to ask him how he understands it.
Greenwald's original sin - and the subsequent rant at the barbecue on the Cape - was not to call Klein's factual accuracy in to question. Not at all. The whole incident is enlightening precisely because it threatens his credibility, the only real currency inside players in our national politics consider of worth. Far worse than being called out as intellectually dishonest, or mocked for his thin skin, Klein is outraged that people are questioning his credibility. It's one thing to be called a liar; it's another all together to be laughed at because one is shallow and professionally incompetent.
This entire incident shows that it might just be a test of our culture if we continue to tolerate the Joe Kleins of the world.
