Steve Gilliard has read
Jason Zengerle's non-apology-apology for publishing a phony email, and isn't impressed, to say the least. In fact, Gilliard is going over Zengerle's head and
demanding that his boss, New Republic editor Franklin Foer, disclose the the name of the person who provided Zengerle with that phony email, and falsely attributed it to Gilliard:
What I would have liked to see is an admission that his refusal to actually consult with anyone he quoted was a fundamental mistake. His first reply to me snottily suggested that I didn't know anything about journalism for wondering why he quoted my words to a private e-mail list.
Well, I stayed awake when my journalism advisor discussed these things at my college paper and in class. I paid attention to the idea that you confirmed quotes when you didn't hear them personally. I also learned that fairness was an objective goal. So before quoting me, it would have served us all well to make sure those were my words.
Matt Stoller may be wrong in accusing you of making up my words, but you are still protecting a source who clearly sent you a doctored e-mail. So until that person is revealed, he can, like Zengerle, assume facts not in evidence.
Glenn Greenwald isn't the only one demanding that you reveal your source for my e-mail. As I have said in private comunications with the TNR editors, I want the chance to compare that e-mail to any I may have written. I fully expect that unreliable and probably dishonest source be revealed, expediciously .
If there was ever a case for outing a source, this is it. Here, not only did the source provide phony information, but he (or she) provided a fraudulent document -- a serious act of dishonesty for which there can be little in the way of explananation. Moreover, the document was fraudulent in such a way as to maliciously libel a person -- Steve Gillard -- by attributing words to him which he never said. There really is no better case to be made for outing a source than here.
Which, of course, is precisely why I don't expect The New Republic to do anything. I expect Foer will immediately go into damage-control mode, as outing the source would escalate Zengerle-gate to next level of media-humiliation. Thus, I expect Foer will send this source a stern email threatening to out him (or her), and the source will then come up with some lame credulity-stretching excuse of how he (or she) thought that the email was from Gilliard to Townhouse, but was really from his cousin to his mother in law, or some such bullshit, and then Foer will give him (or her) a stern talking to and then do nothing.
However, as I said earlier in a comment, presuming that TNR does not "out" this source, perhaps there are readers out there in a position to do so. If this email is, in fact, a real email, than I would bet that there are readers out there who recognize the text of this NOT-Gilliard email, and who either sent it or received it. If this is true, and you are out there, and you sent or received this email, I think it's time to publish it with the entire header included, including the senders and ALL the recipients.
It's pretty clear that, if this email exists, then one of the persons on that header, who presumably would also be on Townhouse, would be the source who betrayed Kos and turned the private emails over to Zengerle. If TNR does not out the source, then perhaps it is we who can.