Here.
As you may remember, I wrote about the endless depths of Joe Klein's stupidity. Well, I missed something. He also said this:
[L]ook at the record. Tell me where I've been misled by my sources.
Glenn Greenwald did just that. Greenwald, rather forcefully, takes Klein up on his offer, then beats him up with it. Greenwald writes:
Thankfully, by virtue of what Joe Klein calls "actual journalism" (what Newsweek's Richard Wolffe describes as the "fantastic job" our political press does), Klein was able to assure the world that all of the concerns about Guantanamo were "total rubbish" -- nothing more than a "dimwitted and loathesome [sic] orgy of recriminations" from "feckless" and "flaccid Europeans." As he intrepidly reported, the U.S. was "abiding by the spirit of the Geneva Conventions" at Guantanamo and the detainees were "not being treated badly at all." That's "How Actual Journalism Works"
Well, whoops, it turns out Klein's sources were wrong. Huck of a job, Joe.
I guess I should also point out the excellent use of phallic imagery by Klein. Calling Europeans (and by extention, people who don't like torture) flaccid, he adds on to that lovely little narrative of American Exceptionalism Is Manliness. Frankly, the political establishment's obsession with sex says more--I think--about their own Freudian neuroses than it does about the state of politics, but I'll leave that thought for another time.
While on the subject of idiotic, sex-obsessed media figures, Maureen Dowd's column today was enough to raise my blood pressure past what my poor over-salted heart should have to handle. Here are some gems:
Obama breezed through West Virginia, the state he couldn’t charm even wearing a flag pin and promising to invest in “clean coal."
Obama is acting the diffident debutante.
Two in 10 white voters said race was important in how they voted, and more than 8 of 10 of these went for Hillary. This echoes an article in The Washington Post on Tuesday that chronicled the racism that some Obama volunteers found in Indiana and Pennsylvania.
“You know I never give up,” [Clinton] said, with a W.-strength denial of reality.
Let me sum this up: Obama is a debutante; Clinton is W.; and West Virginians are racist. Got it? She also claims that the only way to change WV's racism is to buy votes. It's journalism at its finest.
Molly Ivors, over at Whiskey Fire, has this to say:
The framing here allows her to hit the trifecta: slamming Obama (he didn't try in WV!), Clinton (she lied and bought the rednecks off!) and West Virginians, in one fell swoop. From a purely technical angle, it's compelling stuff, but of course to admire it, one must close one's eyes to the pernicious effects of all this bashing.
But none of this really has any impact on the sheer coastal snobbery of Maureen Dowd. Her "Obama is a girly man" schtick is of noble and ancient vintage, but it may just have turned to vinegar at this point. Use it on a salad, Maureen, not on us. We know this election is too important to be subject to your bullshit analysis.
Remind me never to piss off Molly Ivors.
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