Matt Taibbi fellates Glenn Greenwald, and: Thiel time? (with some ass-whup for Matt, Glenn and Max Blumenthal)

So, in case you've been away from Twitter for 24 hours? 

Glenn Greenwald quit the Intercept Thursday after senior editor Betsy Reed refused to let Greenwald run a piece about the New York Post/Hunter Biden story  — you know, the one where the Post reporter initially involved thought it was SO bad he refused to let his name on it, and then he or somebody leaked to the New York Times.

(Pictured at left: The face of Glenn Greenwald resigning from The Intercept. Sorry, Larry Bird fans, but I just realized the resemblance. And the beet-red, or tomato-red, color befits the petulant anger of Greenwald even more than the general equinamity of Hoosier Jeesus.)

Or, you know — the story that Giuliani et al first tried to peddle to the wingnut-enough Wall Street Journal and it initially was leaning toward "no thanks," then emphatically said "no thanks" after Giuiliani made clear that the WSJ was EXPECTED to do a hit piece.

Or, and most relevant to our discussion, you know — the piece that drew MSM reaction so fierce that Greenwald's first reaction to that reaction was to go on racist Tucker Carlson's program to denounce the general levelheadedness lock, stock and barrel.

Greenwald claims he had planned nothing but a "modest proposal" piece, but, given his appearance on Tucker, I'm sure Betsy Reed saw "modest proposal" in its Swiftian sense.

Why wouldn't she want an editorial look-see?

So Glenn got in a funk and quit.

And went to Substack, drawing an increasing collection of misfits, including Taibbi of the header and Andrew Sullivan of racist pecadillos. (Did a black man refuse him bearback sex? What's the trigger here, Sully?)

Update, Nov. 14: Letter signer and Ezra Klein flunky (flunky of a flunky) Yglesias has joined the piety brothers swill at Substack. And of course, it's Conor Friedersdorf taking this with utmost seriousness at Atlantic. (Yglesias is also an  overpaid classist if he's buying $1.2M DC condos.)

And, Taibbi wrote a "Poor Glenn" piece in which he, like all the other Greenwald-stanners of the last 24 hours, discusses his "heroic" or whatever work with the Edward Snowden archive, all while failing to note that, approximately a year ago, Greenwald, saying that Omidyar was too broke to pay for more Snowden reporting, turned all the materials over to Omidyar, in conjunction with Jeremy Scahill.

Neither has apologized.

Nor has Glenn apologized for pulling punches in previous Snowden reporting, nor saying what edits or self-censorship he did.

Meanwhile, Taibbi gets the big issue wrong, as do his fellow ALLEGED outside the box pundit stenos.

And, that is that Russia DID meddle in 2016, and above all, of course Guccifer 2.0 hacked the DNC. 

That said, Russia did NOT collude, shown first and foremost by Guccifer 2.0 (or other operatives) ALSO hacking the RNC.

So, both the stenos AND #TheResistance types, including such self puffers as Marcy Wheeler, the Glenn Greenwald of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, are BOTH wrong.

And, Taibbi is off to suck Greenwald's dick instead of Tulsi Gabbard's.

This is the latest in a line of idiotic screeds by Taibbi, starting just after he went to Substack, as I noted. As part of this, even though he shockingly didn't sign the "boo cancel culture" letter in Harper's, which I thoroughly deconstructed, he totally agrees with its ideology. 

Taibbi also deliberately overlooks other black marks of Greenwald, like his supporting the Iraq War. And, it's more than that. Greenwald has never admitted he was wrong, because he continues to this day to claim (lyingly) that he did NOT support the Iraq War.

Speaking of lies?

This whole Greenwald claim of "but my contractual rights say no editing" is another lie. The Intercept, per this great NY Mag story, says that was ONLY true of his columns. His news stories were, are and always have been subject to editing, and mentioned previous examples. Details of that in re the proposed Hunter Biden story.

Greenwald’s main editor on the nonpolitical pieces was Peter Maass, a veteran journalist who joined The Intercept shortly after its founding in 2014. In light of the high-profile, controversial nature of Greenwald’s planned column on Hunter Biden, Reed told Greenwald that Maass would edit the column. 

On Tuesday, Maass sent a lengthy memo to Greenwald, outlining what he said were the draft’s strengths and weaknesses and suggesting that he adopt a sharper focus on media criticism rather than litigate questionable evidence of Joe Biden’s corruption based on purported documents from his son Hunter that had been published by the New York Post.

Shock me.

And, at least one person I know of who knows better is in a new phase of Greenwald re-enchantment. You know who you are. But, just as I can't force antimaskers to stop being pseudoscience mongers.

As for the issue at hand? Hellz yes, if I were Betsy Reed, I'd want to red-pencil Greenwald. Per Jay Rosen recently and my take on him, I'd look at both Greenwald's and Taibbi's twosiderism as part of this.

And? Also unmentioned by Taibbi? Greenwald himself, comfortable with gutting other writers at the Intercept.

But Greenwald?

Jacob Silverman NAILS IT at The New Republic:

Greenwald seems to think he is beyond editing or critique. As he wrote to an editor, “Recall that under my contract, and the practice of The Intercept over the last seven years, none of my articles is edited unless it presents the possibility of legal liability or complex original reporting.”

And, that's the bottom line.

I would have said, if some reasonable conservative outlet had tackled it ... But we know the WSJ has refused to touch it with a 10-foot pole since the original. Reason? Robby Soave has proved himself to be his usual unreasonable self, misframing the WSJ handling. The rest of Reason seems unable to write a single non-duopoly story in the last two weeks. Where's Jo Jorgensen? (Well, they ARE reporting on her officially being an antivaxxer. Nother story.)

National Review? I don't see a non-wingnut tackling it. Wingnut de luxe Kevin D. Williamson scolded the MSM for not taking more of a look — 10 days before the NYT reported on the WSJ's hard pass. Since then? Crickets. Otherwise, NR, in reporting on Glenn, notes his comment that most of the Intercept staff lives in New York. Gee, so does Glenn! Got his name as a libertarian tenant shyster lawyer there. As does the official physical location of ... The National Review!

Per/contra Taibbi, an intelligence non-Resistance lefist would never listen to Adam Schiff anyway. And, serious reporting like Ben Smith's has never claimed this was Russian disinformation, since Giuliani showed it was Trump disinformation.

So, Taibbi's in the land of gaslighting there.

Also in the land of gaslighting? Max Blumenthal, shock me.

Contra this gotcha bullshit, even by his standards, from Max:

The Intercept’s Betsy Reed, who earns $427,419 a year & produces zero journalism of her own, mocks independent journalists who rely on Substack & Patreon to get by. Not everyone has a reclusive billionaire to pay them huge sums to edit stuff no one reads. https://t.co/TdnjrDdinw pic.twitter.com/83FMDhpRgQ

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 30, 2020

My response, which included Max, Reed, and the person who retweeted:

Sully has said he expects to get more on Substack than at New Yorker & what he made there was more than Betsy does.
2nd, in traditional media as well as Gnu Media, editors make more than many of the reporters they supervise.
This is "gotcha" even from you Max. More #twosiderism

— Flim Flam 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 31, 2020

Beyond that, conveniently omitted by Max, the retweeting Aaron Maté and the re-retweeting Mona Holland, is that Reed is not just editor, but editor-in-chief. And had 16 years of various editorial experience at The Nation before that. 

In addition, Max's salary schedule screengrab carefully, CAREFULLY, does not include Glenn's salary. If Scahill is pulling in more than 300 large, Glenn may make as much as Betsy. In 2015, he made more. And, Glenn said as late as last year that his salary hadn't changed. So, he was STILL making more than Reed.

Finally, why is Xi Jinping Thought stanner Max Blumenthal blubbering like a baby capitalist over "poor Glenn Greenwald" possibly taking a pay cut?

As for lands of gaslighting? Silverman at TNR goes on to look at what Substack might be, if there's a nuttier Omidyar willing to pay the freight beyond what Omidyar did:

An informed media observer, or someone who spends too much time on Twitter, could come up with a list of who might be called to join such a publication: Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan, Zaid Jilani, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Michael Tracey, perhaps some podcasters notorious for straddling the left-right divide, and anyone else who thinks that threats to speech emanate from a censorious, liberal-dominated culture and not from Donald Trump, corporate power, or police brutalizing protesters in the streets. 

Forget Persuasion or Quillette or whatever free speech absolutist publication is currently fermenting in a billionaire’s petri dish. This will be a Voltron of some of the most insufferable people in American media. … 

And who will fund such a publication, whose staff will likely expect to recuperate the hefty salaries they are accustomed to? The billionaire that puts libertarian iconoclasts, professional rageaholics, racist disaffected conservatives, and some members of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web on the same payroll will be far more malevolent than Intercept owner Pierre Omidyar, who has no shortage of his own peculiar investments and unacknowledged political commitments. Some possibilities come to mind—perhaps a Trump-friendly tech mogul notorious for killing a genuinely free-thinking publication—but one hesitates to summon the demon by naming it.

That, too is very true. And, the demon of Thiel behind a Substack on steroids? OUCH! I think I just threw up in the collective mouth of Sea Islands.

As for the possible reality of this? Who knows? I can't see Thiel being Taibbi's cup of tea, but I could totally see Greenwald and Sully lapping him up.

One more Silverman, with the last word on Glenn, which I've known, and the nameless person above knew even longer.

Bombast and ego have always been at the heart of Greenwald’s writing. But like many star journalists left to marinate in their own juices for too long, he’s become an asshole who equates being edited with the targeted suppression of his righteous beliefs.

That's the bottom line!