While advertisers (along with the last few remaining self-respecting patriotic conservatives) continue to flee Fox News’ prime time deplorable Trump Triumvirate — Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson — in droves, there is at least one high profile convert who is not embarrassed to be associated with the network that has become synonymous with ugly nativism, Trump State TV, and Seth Rich conspiracy theories: Glenn Greenwald. The love affair between this former critic of abusive presidential power and GOP TV started in 2016 as links between the Trump Campaign and Russia first became obvious and Greenwald permanently positioned himself as an extreme Russiagate skeptic, endearing himself to the most rabid “opinion people with an agenda” (as Fox’s Chris Wallace describes them) on America’s most extreme propaganda tv network in history, as well as the fringes of the left who bought into the deep-state-is-out-to-get-Trump line. He became Democracy Now’s favorite go-to Russiagate skeptic, as well as Fox’s Tucker Carlson’s favorite Democratic Party basher.
There were those, including me, who felt that Glenn Greenwald may have had a point three years ago when he first began sanctimoniously lecturing the media and Trump critics that they dare not blindly accept without hard evidence the disturbing claims being made by US (and allied) intelligence agencies at the time that Russian intelligence was behind the hacking of the DNC’s email servers as part of an elaborate “Active Measures” operation to meddle in the 2016 US elections (just as Russia had done previously with the Ukraine elections and those of various Western European countries including the UK’s Brexit referendum the same year). Greenwald made it pretty clear with his trademark obnoxious condescending certitude that he appends to pretty much all of his opinions, that he himself rejected out of hand the idea that Russia could be guilty of what intelligence was alleging, as nothing more than a silly and dangerous conspiracy theory — a “hoax” — by those who opposed Trump’s candidacy (hey, aren’t those the same talking points and terms of art used by Trump and company?!)
Of course, the supreme irony is that in order to disparage and belittle the Russia election meddling conspiracy theory, Greenwald latched onto an opposing conspiracy theory that was substantially more outlandish involving the villainous and apparently omnipotent Democratic Party Hillary Clinton Machine and their supposed “deep state” spook allies (despite the well known fact that the rank and file of the NatSec State have always been known as solidly conservative and Republican for the last 60+ years) who were so ubiquitous and unified in all agencies of the US government that they could get the leadership of all 17 US intelligence agencies (along with several overseas allied intelligence agencies) to fabricate this elaborate Russiagate hoax and plant it in the media, in order to damage Trump’s prospects. Strangely enough, Greenwald’s favored conspiracy theory just happened to be the exact same one being peddled word-for-word by the most disgusting dishonest demagogic anti-progressive entities in the world, including white nationalist Gaslighter-in-Chief Trump himself, Alex Jones, Fox News opinion heads, pretty much the entire gamut of least credible far right mouthpieces who are NEVER right or honest about ANYTHING. It was a bit difficult for me to fathom how a supposedly progressive journalist like Glenn Greenwald could get in bed with all of these liars and frauds pushing diametrically opposed values to those espoused by Greenwald, in order to sing the same Russiagate-is-a-hoax tune. This would be the first in a long unending series of shared sing songs peddled by the Trump Cult and Greenwald.
But aside from Greenwald’s odd blind acceptance of the Trump campaign’s gaslighting talking points rejecting said Russian meddling, at least he pretended to care about getting the evidence before making a final conclusion. “Let’s see the evidence!” he would insist all through 2016-2017. Yes. Sounds reasonable to me. Let’s wait for the evidence to make a final determination. I totally agreed. I was willing to give Greenwald the benefit of the doubt because I took Greenwald at his word and believed that he would follow the evidence wherever it led, and that, if the evidence were to eventually prove that Russia was indeed guilty as charged, Greenwald would then be forced to come to his senses and admit he was wrong, and stop singing the Trump Regime’s Russiagate-is-a-hoax tunes of deflection and denial.
Well, by early-mid 2018, as the evidence mounted and eventually became overwhelming that Russian Intelligence was indeed guilty as charged, along with the fact that over a dozen key members of the Trump Campaign had met with Russian officials before the election to share/exchange information that would be beneficial to the campaign and then lied about it, I waited for Greenwald’s mea culpa. And I waited...and waited...and waited...all throughout 2018. But NOPE! Instead, I watched Greenwald become increasingly shrill and buffoonish as he dug in his heals and became a favorite frequent guest on Tucker Carlson’s show to join in on bashing the left and to attack other, far more legitimate journalists and media outlets and to gaslight those concerned about Russia’s meddling in our elections and Trump’s failure/unwillingness to abide his oath of office to protect US national security from all enemies. By then it became clear to me that there was something much more disturbing and dark going on with Greenwald than a need to be a contrarian breaking with conventional liberal opinion or being afflicted with some kind of blind spot in which he is incapable of getting his mind around a genuine threat to US national security. If that were the case, then he wouldn’t be engaging in the extreme level of dishonesty and smearing of Trump’s opponents while increasingly carrying water for a right wing authoritarian regime in its efforts to neutralize and destroy the only institution (Federal law enforcement) capable of reigning in the epic corruption and greatest domestic threat our Republic has faced in over a century.
The Irony of Glenn Greenwald who wrote two books on abuse of presidential power cuddling up with Bill Barr — the Executive Power Extremist on Steroids
Anyone who still had even the slightest hope that Glenn Greenwald would come to his senses and stop lying and playing defense for the Orange Führer’s Russiagate scandal when the Mueller Report was finally released, had their fantasy utterly annihilated in the weeks since the report was released. In my previous diary posted on April 3, 2019 — “Glenn Greenwald again seriously injures himself after going way out on a limb on the Mueller Report” — I discussed Greenwald’s asinine rationale for insisting that Trump’s cover-up fixer Bill Barr wouldn’t dare to do what Trump hired him to do and how it only took a couple of weeks for Greenwald’s foot to firmly land in his mouth when that thing that Greenwald laughed off as improbable actually transpired — when that “one person on the Mueller team stood up to say, ‘Wait a minute, he is distorting our findings.’” I also predicted that even in the face of such an embarrassing exposure, Greenwald would not admit he was wrong nor apologize for ridiculing those who sensibly predicted that Bill Barr would perform the job for which Trump hired him to do and for which he had a long career of doing (to the point that he became known as H.W. Bush’s Coverup General) — cover up and lie about the crimes and abuse of presidential power of the POTUS. As Glenn knows very well, Barr has a history of engaging in precisely the kind of cover-up of presidential abuses Glenn once professed to oppose, in particular with the Iran-Contra cover-up scandal which Glenn wrote extensively about in two books on the subject of abuse of presidential power.
And now that the Mueller Report has finally been made available to the public, even with all the redactions notwithstanding, Greenwald has continued right on willfully misrepresenting the public evidence without skipping a beat. Not only that, but Greenwald even goes several steps deeper into absolute buffoonery rallying around Bill Bar’s comical legalistic sophistry that essentially maintains that Emperor Trump should be above the law and allowed to shut down an investigation that he deems was a “hoax” and based on a false accusation, which is pretty incredible considering Greenwald’s entire journalistic career, at least up to the point where he positioned himself as an extreme Russiagate denialist, consisted of vigorously opposing such notions of authoritarian impunity and unchecked power.
Watch This Stunning Display of Buffoonery by Greenwald on his buddy Tuckles’ Show 5/2/19 (Buffoon Greenwald in-studio interview begins at 3:56):
Greenwald got the most delighted laugh out of Tuckles of the 4 minute love fest interview when he hysterically accused the mainstream media of making "tons of money exploiting people like con artists, and now it's kind of like the leader of an apocalyptic Doomsday cult, who keeps promising the world is going to end on a certain date and then the day comes and the world still goes."
Oh, riiiight! Because obviously going on the Premier Fake News channel that is consistently rated by independent fact checkers as the most unreliable and untruthful of all news channels and accusing other far more legitimate journalists and media outlets of conning their audience for profit is in keeping with GOP TV’s long-standing insistence that it's better to be spoon fed much higher grade bullshit by billionaires on the Right. Oh the irony! I wonder if Tuckles was annoyed that his favorite Democrat-hating guest managed to out-idiot Tuckles on his own show?
Reporter for Vox, Aaron Rupar said Greenwald’s clownish performance was “beyond parody,” and proposed that, “If you still take this guy seriously, seek help.”
Let’s be clear: If you are to the right of Fox News’ Chris Wallace, you are neither a progressive, nor a serious journalist
A few days ago, one of Fox News’ last two remaining journalists (i.e., those who still occasionally have at least a passing interest in the truth) felt compelled to call out the Trump lickspittles at Fox News, which now includes Glenn Greenwald, who are celebrating the end of the Russia bother for Dear Leader and dismissing special counsel Robert Mueller’s letter to Attorney General William Barr. Chris Wallace had finally had enough of his “opinion people” colleagues “pushing a political agenda” for not trafficking in truth and for their blatant disregard for the preservation of our Republic, and warned that Mueller’s letter was a big deal and really exposed Bill Barr. Appearing on Shepard Smith Reporting May 1st, Wallace took aim at his opinion-side colleagues in his first ever scolding about their refusal to “deal in facts”:
Greenwald may be deeply annoying, self-righteous, and sanctimonious but he is not stupid or ignorant. He certainly is not naïve to the obvious fact that with every such appearance on buddy Tuckle’s show, he is serving as a perfect tool for Fox’s propaganda mission (and thus Trump’s PR messaging). In fact, a few years back when Glenn was employed at Salon, he actually wrote about this annoying problem of liberals allowing themselves to be used as tools on Fox News. He strongly felt that going on Fox News is an absolute waste of anyone's time, and if they call you up and ask you to be a token liberal, you should basically tell them to fuck off, you're busy. He had a name for these traitors to the progressive cause, and maintained that, "The behavior of the Fox News 'liberal' is illustrative of the self-destructive behavior of Beltway Democrats." I kid you not:
This 2007 Salon article by Glenn Greenwald complaining about those sell-out liberals who appear on Fox News is yet another epic example of Greenwald’s typical and frequent monumental hypocrisy, along with his subsequent obliviousness to said hypocrisy. It is a must read and absolutely hilarious given how many times he has allowed himself to be used as Fox News’ favorite Token Liberal Propaganda Tool over the last couple of years. Check it out: www.salon.com/…
To conclude, Greenwald is neither stupid nor confused. Chris Wallace had him nailed. He is pushing a political agenda. That agenda includes extreme hatred for the Democratic Party and the National Security State, and a willingness to support any alternative to the point where he is willing to replace said institutions with a far worse reactionary and extremely dangerous proto-fascist-theocratic political party and white supremacist authoritarian regime, and defend their impunity from law enforcement or Constitutional checks and balances and help them escape any accountability. Glenn Greenwald in effect, if not on purpose, has joined the Trump 2020 Reelection Campaign.