Flashback: Glenn Greenwald writing about Bush in 2006

[Enrique]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/11/progressives-defend-obama-kill-list

"'Conservatism' is now a term used to describe personal loyalty to the leader (just as 'liberal' is used to describe disloyalty to that leader), and no longer refers to a set of beliefs about government. . . .

"Indeed, as many Bush followers themselves admit, the central belief of the Bush follower's 'conservatism' is no longer one that [subscribes] to a limited federal government - but is precisely that there ought to be no limits on the powers claimed by Bush precisely because we trust him, and we trust in him absolutely. He wants to protect us and do good. He is not our enemy but our protector. And there is no reason to entertain suspicions or distrust of him or his motives because he is Good.

"We need no oversight of the Federal Government's eavesdropping powers because we trust Bush to eavesdrop in secret for the Good. We need no judicial review of Bush's decrees regarding who is an 'enemy combatant' and who can be detained indefinitely with no due process because we trust Bush to know who is bad and who deserves this. We need no restraints from Congress on Bush's ability to exercise war powers, even against American citizens on US soil, because we trust Bush to exercise these powers for our own good . . . .

"And in that regard, [Bush followers] are not conservatives. They are authoritarian cultists. Their allegiance is not to any principles of government but to strong authority through a single leader."

[ProSense]

1. Title:

"DOJ kill list memo forces many Dems out of the closet as overtly unprincipled hacks"

Seems like Greenwald is still trying to save face.

Is Glenn Greenwald trying to save face?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002791988

Glenn Greenwald and His Repulsive Hypocrisy
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/03/1184268/-Glenn-Greenwald-and-His-Repulsive-Hypocrisy

Remembering Bush, accurately
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022343435

[Enrique]

2. some Obama fans don't like Glenn Greenwald

please repost in Latest Breaking News.

[ProSense]

5. Breaking: Greenwald doesn't like Obama or his supporters.

Glenn is a massive hypocrite, and his current piece, attempting to conflate Obama supporters to Bush supporters (he was one) is pathetic.

He wants to cover his ass by equating support for Bush and his illegal war in Iraq to debating drone strikes.

[MotherPetrie]

3. Or, it's OK if MyPresident does it

Kudos to GG for calling out Dems and their apologists when they pull the same shit he called out Repugs and their apologists for.

[madfloridian]

13. Exactly right. We who accept all done by a president are the hypocrites.

Just because a president does it does not make it okay.

[whatchamacallit]

4. Flipside of the same rotten coin

Just as certain and deluded as the Bushbots.

[geek tragedy]

6. Except that Greenwald ignores the difference between the

"kill members of AQ per the AUMF of 2001" rule and the "inherent power to kill or torture anyone I please rule.

There is a disturbing lack of procedural restraint on the President w/r/t terrorists, but that's because Congress wrote a blank check in 2001 and has been disinterested in creating any conditions since then.

But, those who don't have a problem with targeting terrorists with covert operations should not be equated to those who said Bush had the power to detain Americans on US soil without judicial review.

[Enrique]

7. Bush and his defenders constantly used the AUMF as their justification

and Greenwald's point here is not about people's legal justifications, but the people supporting the policy based on their trust of the president.

[geek tragedy]

9. No, they actually cited the "inherent authority of the President" as

the justification to do whatever they wanted, WITHOUT JUDICIAL REVIEW.

I think people tend to overlook that--Obama's reading is based on a construction of a grant from Congress. According to Bush, neither Congress nor the Judiciary could question anything he did.

The Padilla case is a lot more disturbing than the Al Awlaki case.

[kenny blankenship]

8. The good ol' days are not all dead and gone

[SidDithers]

10. Flashback. More Greenwald writing about Bush in 2006...

http://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm?fuseaction=printable&book_number=1812

During the lead-up to the invasion, I was concerned that the hell-bent focus on invading Iraq was being driven by agendas and strategic objectives that had nothing to do with terrorism or the 9/11 attacks. The overt rationale for the invasion was exceedingly weak, particularly given that it would lead to an open-ended, incalculably costly, and intensely risky preemptive war. Around the same time, it was revealed that an invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein had been high on the agenda of various senior administration officials long before September 11. Despite these doubts, concerns, and grounds for ambivalence, I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president's performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.

Sid

[madfloridian]

12. He was saying it was hard to accept betrayal by one's president.

He said:

"I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country."

He was telling where he was coming from and how his mind changed.

Many of us had always trusted our presidents until that time.

Nothing wrong with that statement.

[Enrique]

17. ...

[arely staircase]

19. amazing isn't it?

i posted that quote below (didn't see your post.)

but gg is something else. demanding purity of all but himself.

loves him some ron paul too.

[CitizenPatriot]

22. Poor Glenn

He fell for it, so now he sees everyone else as the same fool he was. Some of us knew then that while we wanted Bush to be right, he was not re Iraq/wmd. I never "trusted" Bush and I question anyone who did, because he had no record to engender trust.

I contrast that with Obama, who tries to limit the power of the office, which is something you never see from a President. He did it with the debt ceiling, he called for the investigation into the ex office re drone memo -- Bush never did those things. Facts matter. Obama is not Bush and Obama supporters are not all as gullible as Glenn was re Bush. Constitutional lawyers said Bush vastly expanded and abused the powers of ex office, so this isn't up for "opinion".

We can disagree with something Obama does without being children and pretending he's just like Bush. He's not.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

11. Good find! nt

[madfloridian]

14. From the preface of Greenwald's 2006 book about the Patriot Act.

Last edited Mon Feb 11, 2013, 06:43 PM - Edit history (1)

It is a printable version, so I assume posting more than 4 paragraphs may be acceptable. I have the book he wrote, How Would a Patriot Act?, and I see some in the thread have taken stuff out of context.

I do not agree with everything Glenn Greenwald writes, but I very much respect that he has the guts to say the things he says.

It take courage to criticize presidents from both parties when they following disturbing policies.

A printable book excerpt from How Would a Patriot Act

What first began to shake my faith in the administration was its conduct in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in May 2002 on U.S. soil and then publicly labeled "the dirty bomber." The administration claimed it could hold him indefinitely without charging him with any crime and while denying him access to counsel.

I never imagined that such a thing could happen in modern America— that a president would claim the right to order American citizens imprisoned with no charges and without the right to a trial. In China, the former Soviet Union, Iran, and countless other countries, the government can literally abduct its citizens and imprison them without a trial. But that cannot happen in the United States—at least it never could before. If it means anything to be an American citizen, it means that we cannot be locked away by our government unless we are charged with a crime, given due process in court, and then convicted by a jury of our peers.

I developed an intense interest in the Padilla case. It represented a direct challenge to my foundational political views—that we can tolerate all sorts of political disputes on a range of issues, but we cannot tolerate attacks by the government on our constitutional framework and guaranteed liberties. My deep concerns about the Padilla case eroded but did not entirely eliminate my support for the president. The next significant item on the president's agenda was the invasion of Iraq. While the administration recited the standard and obligatory clichés about war being a last resort, by mid-2002 it appeared, at least to me, that the only unresolved issue was not whether we would invade but when the invasion would begin.

During the lead-up to the invasion, I was concerned that the hell-bent focus on invading Iraq was being driven by agendas and strategic objectives that had nothing to do with terrorism or the 9/11 attacks. The overt rationale for the invasion was exceedingly weak, particularly given that it would lead to an open-ended, incalculably costly, and intensely risky preemptive war. Around the same time, it was revealed that an invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein had been high on the agenda of various senior administration officials long before September 11. Despite these doubts, concerns, and grounds for ambivalence, I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president's performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.

It is not desirable or fulfilling to realize that one does not trust one's own government and must disbelieve its statements, and I tried, along with scores of others, to avoid making that choice until the facts no longer permitted such logic.

[ProSense]

15. Wonder if Greenwald considers

the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act an "unprincipled" hack? From the link you provide:

My blog has become one of the principal online gathering places for citizens of every ideological perspective and background who are truly alarmed by the law-breaking powers seized by the Bush administration, and who want to take a stand in defense of the principles of government and the Constitution. Original reporting on my blog led directly to frontpage news stories on the NSA scandal in media outlets such as The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Knight-Ridder. And when the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on March 31, 2006, regarding Senator Russ Feingold's resolution to formally censure the president, Senator Feingold read from my blog as he questioned one of the committee's witnesses, former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean. Let it not be said that our voices cannot be heard in the halls of government.

Flashback: Russ Feingold 'Pleased' Anwar Al-Awlaki Was Taken Out By Drone Strike
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022319856

Democrats debate issues and understand that the world isn't black and white. It's beyond disgusting that a hypocrite like Greenwald continues to spew his vitriol at supporters of the President who disagree with him. Given his support for the illegal war in Iraq, his attempts to portray Obama supporters as similar to Bush supporters is pathetic.

Here's something he should consider: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022351762

[msanthrope]

21. Copyright is copyright. Four paragraphs is fair use, not more. nt

[madfloridian]

23. Well, then, let's look at it this way. I have the book open in front of me...

and reading more from the very long preface.

I am thinking about transcribing some more of it to post here.

So let's assume that extra paragraphs above the fair use were copied from the book I bought years ago.

[msanthrope]

24. That would no longer be fair use, and would violate the TOS ----

Don't willfully and habitually infringe on others' copyrights.

To simplify compliance and enforcement of copyrights here on Democratic Underground, we ask that excerpts from other sources posted on Democratic Underground be limited to a maximum of four paragraphs, and we ask that the source of the content be clearly identified. Those who make a good-faith effort to respect the rights of copyright holders are unlikely to have any problems. But individuals who willfully and habitually infringe on others' copyrights risk being in violation of our Terms of Service.

It doesn't matter when you bought the book. Nor does the medium matter.

In other words, you can't copy 4 paragraphs of a work from one source, and then copy another 4 paragraphs of the same work from another source and cobble it all together.

You were a teacher, right?

[madfloridian]

25. So report me, misanthrope.

The page is printable.

Tell on me. Get it over with. Okay??

[msanthrope]

26. Tell on you? Aw...hells no! I want you to expand upon your

theory of copyright law.

What does the page being "printable" have to do with fair use/copyright?

[bvar22]

16. Oh my.

...and from The Guardian too....a fairly unimpeachable source with World Wide Distribution.
It will be difficult to discredit The Guardian,
but I'm sure someone will dredge up obscure posts from Blogs and Discussion Boards penned by ax grinders with Butt Hurt in a pathetic attempt to discredit Greenwald and The Guardian.

This should cause some heads to explode,
but it won't.
It will be met with blind, belligerent denial
and strings of Ad Hominem attacks.

It is a fairly simple premise:
If it was NOT OK when Bush did it,
then ...



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[arely staircase]

18. "...the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to..

Despite these doubts, concerns, and grounds for ambivalence, I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president’s performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to..

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/03/1184268/-Glenn-Greenwald-and-His-Repulsive-Hypocrisy#

[msanthrope]

20. Glenn Greenwald, being racist in 2005....

And yet few problems are more pressing. Over the past several years, illegal immigrants have poured into the United States by the millions. The wave of illegals entering the country is steadily increasing. The people living in the border states of California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico know this flow has to be drastically slowed and then halted. The situation is so dire in that region that the Democratic Governors of Arizona and New Mexico were forced to declare States of Emergency as a result of the flow of illegals into their states and the resulting, massive problems which it brings.

The parade of evils caused by illegal immigration is widely known, and it gets worse every day. In short, illegal immigration wreaks havoc economically, socially, and culturally; makes a mockery of the rule of law; and is disgraceful just on basic fairness grounds alone. Few people dispute this, and yet nothing is done.

SNIP......


But one of the most disturbing and destructive aspects of illegal immigration is that it is illegal. Indeed, that is the precise attribute which separates good immigration from bad immigration. Why should Republicans, or anyone, shy away from pointing out that illegal immigration, among its many evils, is “illegal”? That is just absurd. Moreover, it is precisely the fact that illegal immigrants enter the country illegally that spawns justifiable resentment, not only among large clusters of middle-of-the-road voters, but also among the very legal immigrant population about which Sanchez is so concerned. Emphasizing the "illegal" part of this problem is what Republicans need to do more of, not less.

SNIP..

The real irony here is that the problem of illegal immigration is actually one of the very few of the ever-dwindling number of issues that has the opportunity to forge common ground among factions of voters which are, these days, engaged in a ceaseless war with each other. Being worried, and outraged, about illegal immigration is not confined to the extreme precincts of conservatism. Middle-class suburban voters whose primary concerns are local and pragmatic, rather than ideological, know the danger which illegal immigration poses to their communities and to their states, and they want something done about it.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2005/11/gop-fights-itself-on-illegal.html

The whole article is worth a read.....but this is shit that would get you banhammered off of DU.

[ProSense]

28. "The parade of evils caused by illegal immigration is widely known"

"illegal immigration wreaks havoc economically, socially, and culturally"

Jan Brewer's response:



Maybe the Iraq war support wasn't a fluke.

[msanthrope]

31. That would get him banned off of DU, but this is an acceptable source?

Glenn made his money being different things for different people---but his romance with Ron Paul and the Right isn't easy to hide.

[Summer Hathaway]

30. Please don't upset the Greenwald cheerleaders

by presenting them with facts.

It tends to confuse them, and throws them off their lock-stepping.

[msanthrope]

33. The cheerleaders dismiss, but the rest of DU doesn't. Glenn is a Ron Paul acolyte,

and that stink never wears off.

[Jim Lane]

34. Classic ad hominem argument

Premise one: Greenwald said some favorable things about Ron Paul. (Calling him an "acolyte" goes too far but I think that my more careful phrasing would be accurate.)

Premise two: We don't like Ron Paul. (Most DUers would agree with a few of Ron Paul's votes in Congress, but would oppose many more than they would support, so this is accurate.)

Conclusion: Greenwald's criticisms of Obama need not be considered on their merits. Instead, everything he says may be ignored.

The argument is logically invalid in that the conclusion does not follow from the premises.

If you augment the premises by pointing out that Greenwald once wrote some things about immigration that now, several years later, he considers to have been mistaken, then... it's still an ad hominem argument and it's still logically invalid.

[msanthrope]

36. A racist's viewpoints on this President need not be considered. What Greenwald

has written about immigration suggests racism which is in keeping with his mentor, Ron Paul, who is undeniably a racist.

You may call it an attack--I call it knowing your source.

[pottedplant]

37. Try clicking the link

and reading the apology Greenwald wrote subsequent to this 2005 blog post. It's almost as though apology acceptance is only granted when the issue is, say, voting for the Iraq war. Greenwald is obviously not xenophobic. He got it wrong on one of his first blog posts and has repented.

[msanthrope]

39. That was no apology. True, it may have been before he learned to hide it better. nt

[pottedplant]

41. Ok so his marriage is a sham as well

He's just putting on a big act to make up for the shitty 2005 blog post.

[MohRokTah]

40. + 1,000,000,000,000 eom

[gulliver]

27. Cancel.

Greenwald isn't someone to agree or disagree with. He is someone to be dismissed.

[patrice]

29. Why can't I get anyone to tell me HOW MANY DEAD BODIES is too high a price to pay for being WRONG?

Greenwald and the midwives of Atlas Shrugged are saying, "It won't happen" even though they don't have near enough of the right kinds of information upon which to predicate that ABSOLUTE 100% prediction.

And the rest of us are supposed to pretend, because Greenwald et al say so, that there is no risk.

How many dead bodies is too high a price to pay for being wrong?

Then if something does happen, a HIGHLY MARKETABLE COMMODITY known as Plausible Deniability, will be used to sell the people even further down the river.

And, just like with Sandy Hook and largely from the very same crowd, we'll be told to just get over it.

So the putative reason to oppose drone programs, "Innocent people die" doesn't matter if Greenwald et al are wrong about the risks. It only matters if the elected representation of the people of this country make that decision.

All while Greenwald and other "citizens of the archipelagos" impeded any attempts to address U.N. reform, so they are enabling the abuses perpetrated by the IMF, which evoke terrorism in the first place.

Although there are authentic peace advocates, this Ron/Rand Paul variety of phony peace advocates also stand in the way of the regulation of fast-and-furious assault weapons markets all over the world.

[pottedplant]

38. Please cite Glenn Greenwald

extolling the virtues of Ayn Rand. You and others here have an agenda to fabricate a GG persona that is the antithesis of what he is. He is a threat to your narrative and therefore his credibility must be destroyed. Pathetic.

[upi402]

32. now WE give OBAMA a pass

and slam anyone pointing to the elephant in the livingroom.

[patrice]

35. Observing that there is risk is not slamming. Pretending there isn't risk is slamming

people.

This is about the honesty of mutual adult respect.

And it is not honest or respectful to the choices of all persons concerned to say:
1. there is no risk in ignoring terrorism, when there are many of them,
2. and/or implying that the risk is acceptable without the drone program, i.e. even if there is a risk and the gamble goes wrong, against us, and a bunch of people end up suffering and dying, that's an acceptable outcome just so long as there are no drone programs.

YOU have a right to choose 2., but you do not have a right to choose 2. for anyone else; they MUST be offered that choice themselves.

And I'm always a little puzzled by that "now we give Obama a pass" response, since Obama did not create any of this and we have been giving those who did a pass ever since the whole legal position was laid down in the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force, AUMF, which practically no one made a peep about, but now we have everyone running around with their hair on fire, MISTAKENLY blaming PO for a situation that he is trying to manage. Remember that Presidents don't write legislation and read the WHOLE story of how NDAA 2010 was created, including the fact that defense appropriation, like ALL such appropriations that produce our armed forces' paychecks, was veto proof AND it contained, at one point, even worse language than it actually ended up with, and that worse language was changed through the good work of Senator Feinstein at the President's request because PO did not take the easy way out and do a PRETEND veto (So he could say "It's not my fault. I vetoed it.) of something that was absolutely veto-proof anyway.

Not all propaganda comes from government; some people make a living out of it on the internet. And if you don't think that is true, please tell me why the true story of this NDAA is so completely rare.

Please honestly ask yourself, WHY is that?