Comments on: Time Pundit’s Rant and (Partly) Misguided Sense of Privacy

By: Myles SG

Myles SG — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:52:27 +0000

It should read ad hominem as ad should be followed by the accusative case, in this case hominem, the accusative singular of homo. You wrote ad hominum, which construction does not exist in the Latin language.

By: AlanDownunder

AlanDownunder — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:43:25 +0000

I continue to be amazed at what vehement asininity is not shrill and what principled sense is shrill in US political discourse – and not just in its mainstream media.
Why is no GOP politician, no matter how barking mad, ever described as shrill? Drop the term. To use it is to have internalised GOP/MSM framing. Shrill is impotent and wussy – everything that Limbaugh, Fox etc hold liberals to be.
If you must differ with Greenwald’s tone, please refrain from borrowing Karl Rove’s pen. Try to make sense instead.

By: Frank Wilhoit

Frank Wilhoit — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:01:45 +0000

“…Things can go along for a LONG time like this….”

Yes, they can, for certain values of “go along”, but bad stuff starts happening right away and the disproportion between the time-to-damage and the time-to-repair grows exponentially.

Greenwald’s writing would benefit from [much] greater concision, but that is a criticism of his craft, not of his philosophy.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:54:13 +0000

Just for the record, I was able to figure out that the writer was talking generally about drinking at parties and not saying that people were drunk at the party in question. Wasn’t really hard to figure out without the clarification.
I will say that there are privacy issues here in general, but in this specific case I see no problem with recounting the argument. It isn’t even close to the line.
My 2 cents.

By: Blue Meme

Blue Meme — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:52:13 +0000

There is a principled argument to be made that writers (journalists, novelists, screenwriters) who take private interactions with the people around them as fodder for published work without explicit consent are engaged in a questionable activity.
The author of “Primary Colors” is definitely NOT the person to make that argument.

By: Julia Grey

Julia Grey — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:36:56 +0000

I wish you’d been able to do it under slightly different circumstances.
What do you envision as those “slightly different” circumstances? You’re fanning yourself with your hanky over something I can’t quite fathom.
Joe was, not to put too fine a point on it, showing off when he started his bluster about Grassley. As Aimai pointed out, and as we all recognize from our own experience of aggressive opinionators at parties, he was essentially PERFORMING for the crowd, making political remarks to a group of people in the hope that they would give him their attention, nod along to the amazing truth of his insight and perhaps even tell others, maybe even some Important others, about what he said — as long as they did it ADMIRINGLY, of course.
Joe Klein wouldn’t have been the least bit upset — and likely even pleased — if someone had written a blog post about his “private” words at the party if they had been praising him. His “privacy” would have been equally “invaded” by a fawning fan quoting him, but that would have been all right with Joe. It was essentially WHAT HE WANTED to have happen. He wanted people to notice what The Great Joe Klein was saying about Chuck Grassley, and to take him and his opinion seriously.
And if someone had reported the subsequent fireworks in a way that painted Joe in a good light (“boy he really cleaned her clock!” or some such), he would have thought that was fine and dandy, too. It would have elevated him socially and professionally, and let’s face it, that was goal of his smoke blowing from the start.
So what is wrong with revealing those remarks in a critical context rather than the positive one he would have preferred? Nothing. At. All.
Another prima donna blowhard finds out — to his aggrieved astonishment that people aren’t ALL thrilled to be in the presence of his greatness, listening to him with bated breath. A smart man might take that knowledge and think that maybe he should regroup and review how he’s coming across.
Joe should thank Aimai for the lesson. Too bad he’s obviously not learning it.

By: Dan Gillmor

Dan Gillmor — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:15:54 +0000

Aimai, I didn’t intend to imply in any way at all that you (or Klein) was drunk or even drinking, but I can see how it might read that way. My apologies, and I’ve added a line to clarify that. That line was in reference solely to me in a similar circumstance, nothing more. You were right to call him on what he wrote; but, again, I wish you’d been able to do it under slightly different circumstances.

By: aimai

aimai — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:10:55 +0000

Hm. I don’t mean to pull a Joe Klein and get all thin skinned and shrill but I really think the implication that my perfectly ordinary blog post was over the line–and that the original interaction involved any kind of drunken behavior–is just bizarre.

It may have escaped your attention but Joe Klein markets himself–at beach parties and other places–as a man with a lot of gossip to retell. He’s invited to these and other parties not for his charm of person, which is, to say the least, lacking but because people hope he will let some pearl of wisdom, or some unusual piece of gossip, fall. He’s a professional toady to power and raconteur of tid bits about important political people and policy issues.

I was on the receiving end of his stock in trade. We got into an argument because I vehemently disagreed with his pose of omniscience, his lying by indirection to the other members of the barbecue (since he wouldn’t admit to the real source of his anger with Glenn), and his buffoon like failures of journalistic integrity. There were other journalists at the party, and we got into an all round discussion of blogger vs. journalist ethics. Joe didn’t ask me if I was a blogger but that was just because his sexism, and his professional arrogance, prevented him from assuming that this might be the case. Other people at the party knew that I blogged occasionally.

Perhaps you don’t know many people who are willing to engage in a public argument without alcohol? I do. Neither Joe nor I was drunk. He’s just a boor by nature and I’m a tough talking broad by nature.
The barbecue was a public place–on a public beach, even. But more to the point if I were the famous one Joe would have gone right home and written another novel about it, anonymously of course. I don’t think he had the right to assume that his communications with me would be kept private. And I certainly didn’t think that my communications with him, if he thought he could turn a buck off them, would be kept private.

aimai

By: James

James — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:16:09 +0000

Let me ask you this. What if it were a politician exhibiting this kind of behavior? What if it were John McCain going off on a drunken rant at the barbecue he threw for his favorite journalists? What if he launched an unhinged slander against a fellow Senator, or against Barack Obama, complete with unhinged rantings about the person in question being EVIL!!! and WIKIPEDIA IS LEFTIST!!! Would a journalist be right or wrong to report this behavior to his or her reading audience? Would that be reportable behavior? Or do you advocate keeping that kind of behavior secret from people who are trying to make judgments about someone’s credibility?

What did you think about Mayhill Fowler reporting Barack Obama’s “bitter” remarks? Was that a “very close call” because the “issue could have been addressed in a more obviously public forum”? Was that a reportable moment, in your judgment?

By: catclub

catclub — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:53:34 +0000

Shrillness. I think an example would be statements
that a republic based on a constitution and rule of law cannot survive if both the constitution and rule of law are ignored
for certain powerful people.

Why is this shrill? Because it is not particularly supported by the facts. Things can go along for a LONG time like this.
Long enough for others to doubt that ‘cannot survive’ phrase.

I am not saying that GG has made such statements, because
my memory is not nearly good enough to claim that. That is the tone
that _I_ hear as I read some of GG’s articles.