Hodding Carter III: "Glenn Greenwald, I’m sorry: Why I changed my mind on Edward Snowden"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/23/glenn_greenwald_im_sorry_why_i_changed_my_mind_on_edward_snowden/

SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2015 10:29 AM EDT

Glenn Greenwald, I’m sorry: Why I changed my mind on Edward Snowden

HODDING CARTER III

- snip -

When Edward Snowden’s breathtaking leap off the high board made its first splash, most public and media reactions featured shock and outrage, even among those appalled by the scope of the government’s electronic eavesdropping that he revealed. A minority applauded. A smaller minority yawned. But public ambivalence all but vanished within a month. Consecutive polls showed growing numbers giving emphatic thumbs-down. “You weren’t acting on my behalf,” they seemed to roar.

- snip -

As for the three reporters he entrusted with portions of the material, were they chosen because he trusted them to use it wisely? They were enablers of the unthinkable or traitors themselves. It was a hard position to maintain, since they were varied in background and outlook. Snowden apparently picked each because of what he saw as their unsparing coverage of government’s rogue activities. They include Laura Poitras, a left-wing freelance television producer whose previous work had stirred waters, and Barton Gellman, a mainline journalist who had won two Pulitzer Prizes while working for The Washington Post. The most prolific was Snowden’s tireless Boswell, Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for the British newspaper, The Guardian. He was, and is, unrestrained in his free-swinging indictment of what he considers to be mainstream media’s absence without leave from the fray. Major press heavies returned the compliment, labeling him a radical nouveau whose rants outran reason. To reread their snide fulminations is to realize that the best antidotes to arrogance are looped replay or a long memory.

MORE

[think]

1. Hodding Carter III was the former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs for Jimmy Carter

Glad he changed his mind....

[deurbano]

2. Don't see this kind of admission very often.

[2banon]

3. K&R

[grasswire]

4. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great essay! And I love this quote:

"There gets to be a point when the question is, whose side are you on? Now, I’m Secretary of State of the United States and I’m on our side."
—Secretary of State Dean Rusk


Our side. The side of the people. Amazingly simple.

[grasswire]

5. this

The horde of talk show reactionaries came baying from their ideological kennels to snap and snarl across the land. Snowden’s sympathizers were “useful idiots,” to use the former Soviet phrase, just as Fox’s propagandists had been saying all along. The terrorists had a fifth column within America. Debate over; gong-show commentary, interminable.

It is easy to understand their overwhelming nastiness. Whether they knew better or not, they knew their employers and they knew their audience. It is a defense unavailable to those segments of the establishment press who ducked when the hard balls came in high and close. Perhaps it was too much to expect that they would suddenly fall off their asses on the road to Damascus.

The relatively pallid media reaction stung. While government service and politics have consumed decades of my life, journalism, my first and last great love, has consumed even more. Short form, long form, television or print, and now the world of the Internet, I have seen them as the great bedrock and protector of American liberty and freedom. Small town and big city, reporter, anchor, editor, publisher, or columnist, all taught the same lesson. The Bill of Rights gave the press, like every citizen, previously unthinkable freedom to speak truth to power. As the Founders saw it, without the media, the public would be forever blinkered. Without it, government could do as it invariably prefers: conceive, organize, and implement policy decisions untrammeled by the opinions of those it is supposed to serve.

[grasswire]

6. Truth to power, baby! Truth to power. nt

[Octafish]

7. ''As the Founders saw it, without the media, the public would be forever blinkered.''

Any questions?

[carolinayellowdog]

8. if only a dozen, or a hundred "party loyalist" nationalist trolls would echo this apology

not holding my breath, but this is an indication of who is and is not on the right side of history

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Well done. Bravo. K&R

[JDPriestly]

10. K&R. Courageous.

[zeemike]

11. Not one Snowden and Greenwald are tratitors yet.

In this post...but it is early.

[Cryptoad]

12. Not Me!

Comrade Snowden is still a traitor to this country in my book!

[m-lekktor]

13. just acquired the kindle version, didn't know about the book until I read your OP!

[bigtree]

14. should be required reading for critics here

...and elsewhere.

"Small town and big city, reporter, anchor, editor, publisher, or columnist, all taught the same lesson. The Bill of Rights gave the press, like every citizen, previously unthinkable freedom to speak truth to power. As the Founders saw it, without the media, the public would be forever blinkered. Without it, government could do as it invariably prefers: conceive, organize, and implement policy decisions untrammeled by the opinions of those it is supposed to serve."

...precisely. "Whose side are you on?"

[riderinthestorm]

15. But anonymous internet DUers insist he's a traitor11!!! Besides what does Carter know??!!11

this was all "old news". Nothing to see here. Run along! (But he still deserves to get put away forever under the Espionage Act)!

Cant wait for the authoritarian crowd to show up and slam Hodding Carter. When ya got nothing fall back on personal smears...

[bvar22]

16. ....and that is what it will be,

Avoid any and all discussion of Issues or Policy and the History of Bad Policy,
and go directly to Attack the Messenger.

[closeupready]

27. Correct. Anonymous DUer's are Einstein-level geniuses. Period.

[pa28]

17. Liked this part:

And then I changed my mind, though God knows the generally uninspiring media reaction was not responsible. It is hard even now to fully appreciate how many press commentaries either saluted the official line or fell back on patronizing, snide dismissals of Snowden’s character and intelligence.

You get the feeling the Washington media's behavior, at least in part, stems from their own embarrassment at being exposed for the hopelessly compliant lapdogs they really are.

Poitras and Greenwald are the persistent iconoclastic reporters working the story of a lifetime and that's what a Washington reporter is supposed to be doing.

That's the way it works in fiction anyway.

[Doctor_J]

18. uh oh. Will Azure_Radials be around to rebut this obvious truth?

[nashville_brook]

24. teehee :)

[ronnie624]

19. "...a secret high-tech vacuum cleaner to suck the meaning out of the Fourth Amendment."

Perfect.

[Scuba]

20. Good for Hodding Carter. Amazing that some still consider Snowden the bad guy in this.

[uponit7771]

21. What's amazing is why some people are ignoring why others feel Snowdens an asshole in all of this

... like it hasn't been stated 234234 times already and nothing Snowden or Glenn has posted to this point negates that

[Scuba]

22. I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Word salad.

[rhett o rick]

23. Those that choose to side with Gen Clapper and attack whistle-blowers have nothing

to stand on but their blind allegiance to authoritarianism. They want to kill the kid that announces the king has no clothes.

[riderinthestorm]

25. I find it hilarious how desperately the authoritarians cling to their anger at Snowden

and Greenwald in the face of the continuously growing support by legal and political experts.

Nobody's ignoring you - I'm not. I find it truly amusing.

There must not be much dirt on Hodding Carter since this thread isn't loaded with the usual smear jobs...

[WillyT]

26. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!