us versus them, etc
Briefly, two recent items from out there in th' blog-O-sphere:
1.Democratic complicity and what "politicizing justice" really means:
The inability of so many people (both Republicans and Obama-loyal Democrats) to view the need for prosecutions independent of political considerations is a potent sign of how sick our political culture has become. The need for criminal investigations is motivated by one simple, consummately apolitical fact: serious and brutal crimes were committed at the highest levels of the government, ones that left a trail of many victims. A country that purports to live under the rule of law has no choice but to treat its most powerful members who commit serious crimes exactly the same as ordinary citizens who do so. That has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats. - Glenn greenwald
2. John Emerson, "Where are the Pitchforks?
"As I've said many times, Republican populism is fake, but Democratic elitism is real."
via the inimitable Avedon.
Labels: blogging, miscellany, politics, tribalism
posted by Jonathan Versen @ 7:19 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Good god, it only took Greenwald 4 years of constantly thinking about and blogging about American politics to get the most meagre of clues.
Pretty sad for a self-styled accomplished lawyer specializing in First Amendment issues.
I don't know, I think Greenwald's pretty sharp-- both in the "getting it" sense and in terms of figuring out how to get it and still become a lefty blogosphere star, which is to say he possesses political acumen as well.
Often in the past I've had this sense of him dancing up to a certain line and inexplicably avoiding actually crossing it, as if he was saying,
"well, maybe we need to see if we can add two plus two, because I'll bet the result would be interesting. In fact ..."
Then, maddeningly, he stops himself.
Maybe, for better or worse, that's what it takes in our messed-up culture to become a big-time publishable gadfly.
Am I giving him too much credit?
I don't know.
He's sharp compared to a non-lawyer, and only on narrow legal issues.
He claims non-partisanship and "lefty libertarian" views, but he has been a Donkey Champion for at least 4 years. And not just because Donkeys love him but also because for the most part, over the past 4 years, he has refrained from openly criticizing any Donkey except an occasional "bad apple" bit.
I've probably said this before, but I got booted from his Unclaimed Territory blog for comments which repeatedly asked him when he was going to use the same skeptical comments regarding Democrats.
He didn't even know what the PNAC was, and he didn't realize that the PNAC was an ideological warehouse for the Leo Strauss perspective. He probably didn't even know who Strauss was or what made him pivotal to the PNAC gang.
He argued with me over Hugo Chavez, basically he argued the US State Dept line on Chavez, rather than the reality.
He's pretty dim, from where I sit. Apparently somewhere in his noggin, a light has flashed on with a faint brown glow from a 1.5V AAA cell-powered filament light of sudden realization that maybe the Democrats are screwed up.
We'll see how far he can take that tiny realization. My guess is he'll still be arguing that we just need more betterer Donkeys.
Maybe I am the only person who feels this way, but I find Greenwald's prose difficult to read.
you're not.
it's a function of his refusal to write like a human being instead of writing like a Process Maven tainted by lawyerly writing.
I assure you that Greenwald's prose is easy to read if you don't really read it closely, if you just cherry pick his writing for the few phrases where he's bashing a Republican. he's quite valuable for the partisan.
(/snark)
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