UPDATED: Amateur Pundits School Glenn Greenwald
Subsequently, Andrew published several of his readers’ favorable reactions to the renegade lefty. Glenn Greenwald decided to chastise those Sullivan readers — and then the readers (predictably) punched back.
I’m highlighting this back-and-forth because it’s much more than a petty squabble; there’s substance to it. And yes, I’m scoring this one for Sullivan’s readers, for two reasons: First, I happen to agree with them. Second, I’ve long been inclined to root for the (perceived) underdogs.
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UPDATE: The consensus among the early commenters to this post seems to be that, as one of them wrote, the post’s headline is “completely backwards”, i.e., it was Glenn Greenwald who schooled the amateur pundits, not the other way around.
In making that claim, these commenters seem to focus, in whole or in part, on the following aspects of Glenn’s argument:
What’s most striking about these valiant defenses of Obama is how utterly devoid they are of any substantive points and how, instead, suffuse with weird, even inappropriate, emotional attachments [to Obama] they are … These outbursts include everything other than arguments addressed to the only question that matters: are the criticisms that have been voiced about Obama valid?
To an extent, Glenn’s right. Looking back at the first batch of Andrew Sullivan’s readers’ comments, there are ample (implicit and explicit) remarks in the vein of “Obama’s a good guy; I really admire him; so stop yelling at him.”
If that’s all there were to those remarks, I’d concede the point.
But I don’t think Glenn or any of us do justice to Andrew’s readers’ remarks (either the first or second batch) if we don’t consider them in the context of the post that started all this, the one from the disenchanted lefty, or DL for short. In that original post, the DL makes clear up front that criticism of the President was not “the straw that broke this camel’s back,” rather it was a certain type or tenor of criticism, to wit:
“Like Lyndon Johnson who escalated in Vietnam, Obama lives in mortal fear of being called a wimp by Republicans. To look strong in front of swing voters he will sacrifice the lives of hundreds of US soldiers; allow many more to be horribly maimed; waste a minimum of $30 billion in public money; and in the process kill many thousands of Afghan civilians. It is political theater nothing else. The real purpose of these 300,000 [sic] soldiers is to make Obama look tough as he heads toward the next US presidential election. In short, he used Afghanistan to show that we [sic] was not the soft, meek, scared, pussified, little Democrat portrayed in GOP spin. There is nothing else to Obama’s Afghan strategy. Victory in Afghanistan is reelection in 2012. Whatever the outcome, Obama has made it clear: he is willing to kill to get reelected.”
To me, and apparently to the DL, that is not so much criticism of an Obama policy at it is an attack on the man’s character. Granted, this argument is similar to the argument made by some of President Bush’s defenders, and even a few of his detractors, namely: disagree with his policies all you want, but leave his character out of it.
Of course, with any president or elected official — or untitled human being, for that matter — the distinction between policy and character is sometimes difficult to make because policy often (if not always) flows from character. However, while the dividing lines — between attacks on policy v. character; and between justified v. unjustified attacks on character — while those lines may not be precisely determinable, I think many (most?) people would agree that examples like the one cited by DL (above) do not just stick a timid toe across one or both of these indefinite lines, they long-jump over them.
And that seems to be the point of Sullivan’s readers. From the first batch:
This is not about following lockstep with an agenda or sitting on the fence. It is about a willingness to solve critical problems with an acknowledgment that all people at the table cannot possibly agree on everything.
…
The loud-mouths on the Left are becoming nearly as hysterical and vicious as those on the right.
And from the second batch:
Greenwald is in error when he states that people like me … want no criticism of Obama. By all means, dissent and dialogue on every issue. That is what brings a deeper understanding to all. What I object to is the nutty dogmatism, the “Obama is a liar!,” “Obama is Bush/Cheney,” “Obama is… whatever.”
So, yes, I’ll concede this much: Glenn schooled the amateur pundits for expressing too much adoration for the current, fallible person sitting in the Oval Office. But I hope my skeptical readers will likewise concede that a least some of the amateur pundits schooled Glenn for glossing over the multiple, inter-related points of the original DL post, namely: (1) there’s a way to passionately debate issues while remaining civil; (2) there’s merit to civil debate; (3) its opposite — uncivil, venom-laced debate — understandably prompts many people to stop listening to the debaters who employ such tactics, no matter how meritorious (or not) their underlying arguments might be.
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10 Responses to “UPDATED: Amateur Pundits School Glenn Greenwald”
I understand that Disney is re-releasing 'Fantasia' for the holidays, too. LOL
Sorry, Pete, but I think your title has it completely backwards on this one.
As Glenn points out, those “leaving the left” aren't doing so because of any philosophical disagreements with modern mainstream liberalism. Rather, they are doing so because they claim that those of the “left” are being too critical of Obama.
This, in my humble opinion, is a rather idiotic excuse for “leaving the left.” Believing in particular political principles–and not an attachment to any one politician–should be the basis for what constitutes “liberalism” or “conservatism.”
The blind worshipping that some Obama supporters have for the president is bad enough. That these apologists are now castigating “the left” for not falling into line with their worship of the president is worse still.
Winners and losers, left and right, — not much room for nuance there. I find Greenwald to be an interesting journalist who's articles make for interesting reading. We all knew there would be high expectations placed on Obama, partly because there is a need out there, and partly because Obama helped to create it by saying he was the answer to that need. The fall is also pretty steep with those of us who wanted/expected more being forced to agree how we inflated him — right, right he was always a centrist…… I think I 've read elsewhere that people allowed themselves to believe his good speech and basically good man would translate into a leader for these difficult times……but he is only a middle of the roader……..I'm talking based on his behavior, his actions. Hell on his personality he gets high marks. On his presentation skills he gets high marks. On being a peace president…..c'mon. On being a transparent president, Puh.lease. In Israel-Palestine……………not yet. on green, not yet. On mountain top removal….not yet…………so we begin to wonder……..and now Afghanistan with that lame Bush like speech.
I agree with nicrivera on this one. I think Glenn makes it quite clear in his 2nd update where his criticism is aimed:
(emphasis mine) Call me crazy, but I think Glenn is just being consistent. These were policies that almost all folks on the left were screaming holy hell about when Bush was implementing them. Are they just supposed to be OK with them now because the guy they like is continuing them? Besides, Sullivan doesn't have time to criticize Obama on anything because he's too focused on all things Palin.
Greenwald makes some good points (as he usually does) and I'm glad he's out there doing what he's doing. If he encourages people to examine their own decision-making apparatus, then he's accomplishing something worthwhile. I'm glad Obama is in the white house when compared to the other offerings, but that doesn't mean I'm not disappointed in aspects of his performance. Spirasol's comments on that score pretty much cover it for me as well.
This is exactly right.
Love him or hate him, Glenn has been more intellectually consistent in his assessment of Obama than most the left-leaning bloggers and pundits. Unlike all too many of the Obama worshippers throughout the mainstream media and the blogosphere, Glenn has actually criticized Obama on civil liberties and foreign policy, which is probably a reason why his articles are linked to by several libertarian blogs.
One of my biggest complaints about Bush supporters wasn't that they held different political positions than my own, but that they would defend policies undertaken by Bush that they would have never have supported had it been done by a Democratic president. Some of the loudest defenders of Bush when it came to war, nation-building, and civil liberties had also been some of the harshest critics of those same policies when being undertaken by Clinton.
How quickly Republicans changed their tune when one of “their guys” entered the White House. And how quickly Democrats have changed their tune now that Obama is in office.
Now is not the time for double standards. The refrain “But Bush did it too” or “But Bush was even worse” or “Obama deserves the benefit of the doubt” just aren't good enough excuses–not when it comes to critical issues such as civil liberties and foreign policy.
I agree with you on both your points, jchem — where Glenn's criticism is aimed, and his consistency. That is one of the aspects of Glenn's writing that I most admire and respect. Also, Glenn always points out when he writes something critical of Obama that this does not mean he's not an improvement over Bush, and it doesn't mean that Obama has not already, in his first year, done many really good things. It's not all or nothing. It's just — as you say — being consistent.
One other point: People who criticize Glenn for being too hard on Obama have got to realize that Glenn blogs almost exclusively about civil liberties and human rights issues — and these are precisely the issues on which Obama has been *most disappointing.*
Hypocrisy crosses party lines quite easily.
Following up Leonidas comment, I'd also like to point out that the left feels less constrained when it comes to criticism of Obama, whereas republicans had more of a tendency to be in lockstep during the GWB years.
If you get on a right slanted blog, like Wall Street Journal, you'll hear the same thing about the lefties. It all depends on where you're looking (i.e. you're not going to get an accurate idea about new car sales from junk yard dealers). From reading both, I can tell you that it's a lot easier to see in others than yourself (present company excepted, of course).