Slap Fight! (UPDATE)

It's getting ugly out there. This is one of those moments when it is possible to sit back and either enjoy the show, or be disgusted by it. Glenn Greenwald's usual pose of the affronted moral crusader, attacked by an Establishment bent on the suppression of dissent is tiresome; John Burns equally silly pose as the hurt and pitiful simple reporter is laughable. That there continues to be some kind of surprise - "People on the internet are mean!" - over the kinds of things said about others makes me want to laugh.

I have to agree with Matt Yglesias (linked above), at least on this last matter:

I think this shows less about American discourse on these wars than it does about how isolated from criticism writers at prestigious journalistic outlets have traditionally been. I don’t think American discourse about parking regulation or the definition of insider trading or the wisdom of consumption vs income taxes has become particularly embittered in recent years. Nevertheless, some of the responses I get over email and in comments to my posts on those subjects gets extremely vituperative.

A lot of people just like to be vituperative on the Internet. What’s more, for any given stance you can take on a political issue there’s always going to be someone who disagrees with you.

This episode should otherwise pass without notice, except for a couple things. First, these two towering egos - Greenwald and Burns - have now replaced the real issue at hand, the person of Julian Assange and Wikileaks and their document dump, with themselves. Yet another shiny object put in the path of coherent understanding.

I have to admit that I erred the other day when I stated there was a "PR campaign" against Julian Assange. Burns' piece is actually rather fair, in the sense that he notes Assange's drive and intelligence, but also notes that he is hardly sinless. Compared to Nixon's Plumbers breaking in to Ellsberg's psychiatrist office to steal information to use against him, I just don't see this as being in the same league. Furthermore, Greenwald's assertion that he "did not" call Burns a "sociopath" is actually made incoherent in his attempted response (from linked AP report above; if they sue me, send me cash):

I didn't actually call Burns that. What I wrote was that, in light of what these documents reveal, "even" a borderline-sociopath would be awash with guilt over having supported this war and would be eager to distract attention away from that -- by belittling the importance of the documents and focusing instead on the messenger: Julian Assange. In other words, there's only one category of people who would not feel such guilt -- an absolute sociopath -- and I was generously assuming that Burns was not in that category, which is why I would expect (and hope) that he is driven by guilt over the war he supported. That's the most generous explanation I can think of for why -- in the face of these startling, historic revelations -- his journalistic choice was to pass on personality chatter about Assange

I actually attempted symbolic logic to parse this, and still came up empty. Then I tried substituting "wife beater" for sociopath, and came to the conclusion that Greenwald did not, in fact assert that Burns was a sociopath. He only asserted that there is enough circumstantial evidence for someone who might think that to rest easy with that thought. Weird stuff for a lawyer, to say the least.

Second, there is a real issue here, underneath the name-calling and robe-rending by both these ridiculous men. I discovered this real issue in the sidebar at Greenwald's Salon page that displays his Twitter activity. In an exchange with Michael Cohen (going under the Twitter nom speechboy71) we read the following from Greenwald:

"I find JAs failure to redact names deplorable": do you find the huge #s of civilian deaths we recklessly caused as deplorable?

The reality is, yes, the United States killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, and indirectly is responsible for tens of thousands more. For that reason, releasing raw intelligence data to the public, data that has the potential for putting the lives of American service personnel and their allies in Iraq at real risk is OK. That seems to be Greenwald's argument here.

This is ridiculous, even offensive. This is not an intellectual game; this isn't some exercise in moral purity. This is real life, all too real, where people's lives hinge on information that, out of multiple necessities, needs to be kept under wraps. I refuse to impugn the motives of Glenn Greenwald here, as he does with his critics time and time again. All the same, the net result of the argument he is making here is simple: Because the invasion and poorly-managed military occupation of Iraq was (not just politically but morally) wrong, any information that details how wrong is justified, even if that information has the potential of putting the lives of American service personnel at risk.

You know, I and other war opponents have spent the better part of seven years making the argument that our opposition to the war on political grounds is not opposition to the troops. Supporting actions that present a very real threat to the lives of our troops, however, seems like the kind of insouciance we can ill-afford.


UPDATE: I started following both Greenwald and Michael Cohen on Twitter so I could watch their little back and forth in real time. In the midst of a back and forth, Greenwald makes a move so marvelously subtle, I almost missed it. In the process, he manages to hoist the "poor pitiful me" card. First, Cohen's Tweet:

@ggreenwald I see little diff btw what you are doing to Burns and what you claim Burns is doing to Assange

Now, Greenwald's response:

@speechboy71 If you see no diff. between what I did & Burns did, then you should be criticizing him too - but you're not - makes no sense

Thing a beauty, huh? You notice that? Greenwald changes what Cohen said, every so slightly, to make it appear that Cohen is being a hypocrite. Yet, that is not what Cohen said. Cohen does not agree with Greenwald's assertions in re Burns' reporting on Julian Assange (a personality-driven character assassination), but sees, quite clearly, that is exactly what Greenwald is doing to Burns (I especially love the tweet where Cohen points out Greenwald's claim that Burns is acting out of guilt; based on . . . what, exactly?). Just by that subtle change, Greenwald turns Cohen's charge of hypocrisy against Greenwald right around on Cohen, and manages to portray himself the victim.

For what it's worth, Cohen catches it in real time and responds.

@ggreenwald I see no diff btw what u criticize Burns for doing and what u are doing to him


@ggreenwald you attack Burns for assigning motive to Assange. You're doing the same thing to him!