Glenn Greenwald vs. Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is irked that Serious People won't give him the respect he deserves.  First, he took Marc Ambinder to task:

[Ambinder] still says journalists like himself were right to scorn [opponents of the Iraq War] "because these folks based their assumption on gut hatred for President Bush, and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence."  As always:  even when the dirty leftist hippies are proven right, they're still Shrill, unSerious Losers who every decent person and "journalist" scorns.

And then the whole Beltway political and media establishment:

The overriding Beltway dogma, still, is that the true irresponsible extremists are the "leftists" who stood in opposition to [torture, war, etc]. ...the conventional Beltway wisdom has ossified that it is the childish, petulant ideological Left that, as always, is to blame...

Now, he won't get any argument from me on this; no sir, I wouldn't even think of contradicting such richly-deserved righteous anger.  But he's going to have his hands full with this other guy I've read who goes by the name of Glenn Greenwald, who once made this odious argument:

Those who reflexively criticize every Obama action because they predicted long ago that he would be the same as Bush and want that prediction to be vindicated are but the opposite side of the same irrational coin as those who find ways to justify everything Obama does because they long ago placed the type of faith in him that no political leader should ever enjoy.

See what I mean?  Glenn Greenwald is not going to like that one bit.  And this same Glenn Greenwald repeated (and intensified) the same shoddy attack a month later:

Those who reflexively and blindly criticize whatever Obama does (based on the immovable, all-consuming conviction that he is intrinsically Evil) are nothing more than the opposite side of the same mindless coin as those who reflexively and blindly praise whatever Obama does (based on the immovable, all-consuming conviction that he is intrinsically Good).

It almost sounds like Glenn Greenwald is taking the "petulant, ideological Left" to task for being "irresponsible extremists" in these two quotes, doesn't it?  Like he's saying "these folks base their assumptions on gut hatred for President [Obama], and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence," and so they're just "Shrill, unSerious Losers who every decent person and 'journalist' scorns," right?

Well, just you wait until Glenn Greenwald hears about this, Glenn Greenwald!  I'm sure he'll write a scathing article denouncing you for attacking those who were right but "were still wrong and unSerious because their motives were bad."  You'll rue the day you directed such "condescending responses" to the "fringe, crazed, out-of-touch radicals" on your left!

Who will ultimately win this battle of irreconcilable viewpoints—Glenn Greenwald, or Glenn Greenwald?  Only time will tell.  But I genuinely hope it'll be the Glenn Greenwald who writes so many worthwhile and insightful articles, and not the Glenn Greenwald who dismisses the "reflexive", "blind" critics to his left one day and then cries foul the next when it's his ox being gored.

Comments

[john]

"Who will ultimately win this battle of irreconcilable viewpoints—Glenn Greenwald, or Glenn Greenwald?"

My money is on Greenwald. And I'll take a Pick-Six, two Lucky Doubles, a Sure Shot and a half-pint of Old Shorty for its extra brain-killing power.

Oh, and "irked" is a good and funny ha-ha word. Now let's get behind this people.

[Bjorn]

As far as me and no further.

[Scott Busfield]

Well played sir!

[John Caruso]

Thanks, Scott.

I crossposted this on A Tiny Revolution, and one response pointed out that Greenwald seems to be denouncing the left less often these days. That's my impression as well (though I'm not sure if it's accurate since I don't read him regularly), so maybe he's turned a corner on this...and if not, maybe being on the receiving end of it now will drive the lesson home.

[Weniger Gottquatsch]

Yes, excellent analysis, revealing a critical gap in Greenwald's otherwise incisive intellect, his predilection for self deception.

But would you not prefer a beer with Barry to the same with Chimp?

[SteveB]

Or, as George Carlin once said, in a slightly different context, "Everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac."

[John Caruso]

Carlin gets the bingo!

Weniger: If you mean who would I prefer to douse with a vat of beer, it's now too close to call.

[s]

a

[Bill Jones]

Any of the hopey-change knicker-wetters for Obama who really thought that he'd be allowed to be elected if change was a real prospect need to get some serious mental health checks done.