And he got Merle Haggard all wrong, too. Merle has said in interviews that “Okie from Muskogee” was to him a gag record, and like a lot of musicians, most of his band were pot smokers at the time he put out that song.

Much of which was picked-up and promulgated as “news” by mainstream “journalists”.

Seriously, anyone who doesn’t understand that: 1) pro-establishment bias is a feature not a bug of the corporate press and 2) the post-modern journalistic “ethic” of “unbiased” reporting where the statements of the mendacious or the insane are given the exact same weight as the honest or the rational has brought this country to its knees, has no business commenting on either journalism or politics.

Dave, I googled this up and found an excellent piece by Greenwald in which he cheerfully admitted that he is gay; something, apparently, that he has never tried to hide, unlike Matt Drudge and other right-wing closeted gay media icons. Was this your example of how Greenwald was no different from a hack like Klein in responding to critics? If so, that was a pathetically lame attempt at swiftboating, and a classic Rovian MO.

Brian Robinson Says:
November 27th, 2007 at 8:33 am

An interesting set of comments. I don’t want to prolong this too much, but….

– If someone has a blog hosted by Salon, and appears regularly on the site, does he write for himself or for Salon? If someone writes a regular column for the New York Times, is he/she an independent who just happens to publish in the NYT, or is he/she a NYT columnist? And if they screw up, do they or the MSM outlet get the blame?

Glenn Greenwald has no Priscilla Painton (Joe Klein’s editor) editing him at Salon. So there would be no one to speak on Glenn’s behalf with surly remarks like, “That’s assuming there were errors”.

Glenn Greenwald has no Manging Editor such as Rick Stengel of Time over at Salon who would or could back up Greenwald’s blog column with airheaded BS such as Stengel wrote in response to a thousand letters of complaint:

“Thank you for your email, I appreciate your comments.

TIME”

I hear ya. You’re seeking a larger truth here. What suggests quality? What suggests hackery? Dan’s been making a point for years now that tradition and audience (the historical measures of the press) shouldn’t alone be confused for quality. But you have a good sense to express that being a blogger doesn’t automatically suggest quality either.

I’d say that guys like Marshall and Greenwald have a bit of mojo that’s fairly unique– though they probably owe as much as their prowess to journalistic tradition as they do to blogging. BUT– I’ll give oodles of credit to Greenwald the Blogger for stepping up and crunching Klein here.

Those looking to compare the wattage of Klein v. Greenwald in the blogosphere should view this chart.

They both (many do) rely on “tips” from partisans to write their stuff–they don’t factcheck nor even bother to read the actual legislation or historical evidence, nor do they contact people who might actually know the truth–unless it’s to present it as a “debate” where “one side says… but the other side says…” which raises the lies and spin to the same level as the truth and portrays the entire issue as a political fight without telling readers what the actual truth is. Klein passed on GOP spin and talking points based on lies about an important bill–which he hadn’t read at all. He slimed and lied about all Democrats based on those GOP lies, and misrepresented the legislation entirely, while also reinforcing dictatorial powers for the presidency (that the executive could give “direct orders” to private companies that needed to be followed no matterwhat). It was appalling on every level.