Glenn Greenwald

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Greenwald


One of the

Pundits

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And a dirty dozen more
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Glenn Greenwald is an attorney and journalist who has written for Salon and The Guardian. At the Guardian, Greenwald covered international issues (focusing on Iraq and Afghanistan) and civil liberties. He has refused to identify himself politically, though liberals and libertarians attempt to claim him as their own. On numerous occasions he has supported many ideas libertarians would hate (for example, opposing all cuts to welfare programs)[citation needed] and has spoken more than once at the Socialism Conference,[citation needed] so he's probably pretty left of center.

He has been harshly critical of the Republican and Democratic parties, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Contents

[edit] The Good

Greenwald is most famous for breaking the first of many articles about NSA internet surveillance based on documents provided by Edward Snowden. His NSA reporting for the Guardian won a 2014 Pulitzer Prize. Previously, he had written about corruption and incompetence in military planning, detention policies at Gitmo and elsewhere, drug legalization, media stupidity, WikiLeaks and Chelsea Manning.

Though originally a supporter of the Iraq War,[citation needed] by January 2006, when the NSA wiretapping controversy broke, Greenwald reversed his opinion and began writing articles critical of it, the PATRIOT Act and Guantanamo Bay. He also reversed his immigration stance, supporting the DREAM Act.

After breaking the NSA stories he left The Guardian to co-found First Look Media and serve as editor for its subsidiary political news site, The Intercept, which is primarily focused on surveillance.

[edit] The Bad

"I approach my journalism as a litigator. People say things, you assume they are lying, and dig for documents to prove it." —[1]

Greenwald is a former civil rights lawyer and often writes as a litigator would, abusing logic in the process. He frequently reacts to any criticism with various ad hominem attacks[2]. An annoyed Daily Kos writer compiled a summary of deceit in 30 of Greenwald's Salon articles.[3]

His articles are usually well-researched, and sometimes he writes very respectful rebuttals to his critics during one of his good days. On his bad days...we'll, see the following paragraph.

Greenwald is also guilty of numerous instances of dickishness, such as plugging the Oath Keepers when convenient [4] and using sockpuppet accounts to self-promote.[5]

When Greenwald began blogging in 2005, he initially supported the Iraq War, linked to Fox News and graced us with insights such as

"The parade of evils caused by illegal immigration is widely known, and it gets worse every day." —[6]

Though continuing down this path could have effectively scored him an hour-long block on Fox News, he has since rejected most of his conservative views. Some of his more liberal critics have used some of his earlier blog entries in order to dismiss his present criticism of civil liberties abused by the Obama administration. It should be noted that even back then, he would criticize conservative politicians who engaged in illegal or unethical behavior--Jack Abramoff, for example--unlike virtually every other right wing pundit at the time.

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

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