Almost a year ago Glenn Greenwald wrote a blog post with this title:
Repulsive progressive hypocrisy
Was he talking about Progressive politicians or Progressive writers and thinkers? No. He was referring to your average self-identified Democratic citizen:
But now that there is a Democrat in office presiding over Guantanamo and these other polices — rather than a big, bad, scary Republican — all of that has changed, as a new Washington Post/ABC News poll today demonstrates..
53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats — and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats — support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed.
Repulsive liberal hypocrisy extends far beyond the issue of Guantanamo...
Seems like a pretty harsh indictment for your average non-politically obsessed citizen. But as we are about to see the real hypocrite here is Glenn Greenwald...
Recently a diarist celebrated GG's supposed take down of his critics in which he lists alleged lies about himself. Relevant to this diary is this alleged "lie" about him being a supporter of the Iraq War, which derives fromthis quote in one of his books:
Despite these doubts, concerns, and grounds for ambivalence, I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president’s performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to..
And his defense of this blind support of such an awful policy was this:
When the Iraq War was debated and then commenced, I was not a writer. I was not a journalist. I was not politically engaged or active. I never played any role in political debates or controversies. Unlike the countless beloved Democrats who actually did support the war - including Obama's Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - I had no platform or role in politics of any kind...
At the time, I was basically a standard passive consumer of political news: I read The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic: the journals that I thought high-end consumers of news would read and which I assumed were generally reliable for getting the basic truth.What I explained in the Preface was that I had major objections to the Iraq war when it was being debated...
Nonetheless, because of the general faith I had in political and media institutions, I assumed - since both political parties and media outlets and journalists from across the ideological spectrum were united in support of the war - that there must be some valid basis to the claim that Saddam posed a threat. My basic trust in these institutions neutralized the objections I had and led me to passively acquiesce to what was being done ("I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.")...
But anyone using this Preface to claim I was a "supporter" of the Iraq War is simply fabricating. At worst, I was guilty of apathy and passivity.
Firstly, he is contradicting when he said he never supported the war:
that there must be some valid basis to the claim that Saddam posed a threat... I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to...
It is hard not to come away from that quote and not think he supported Bush's decision to go to war. You can argue over semantics as much as you like, but it wasn't like he was neutral. He clearly thought Bush was doing the right thing at the time despite the squishy language he uses. That is not neutral.
Secondly, his claim that there was a consensus regarding the Iraq War is factually incorrect. Most Democrats in Congress (Representatives + Senators) voted AGAINST the war, including establishment figures like minority leader Pelosi and Defense chair Levin. Both of whom were privy to the same intelligence Bush had but came to a different conclusion.
With regard to the media there were numerous high profile commentators and pop culture figures who opposed this war, such as Jon Stewart and moderate Democrats like Chris Mathews. Moreover, in the very same periodicals Greenwald claimed he read on a regular basis, The New York Times and New Yorker, you had columnists like Paul Krugman constantly sound the anti-war trumpet. Yes there were shoddy reporters like Judith Miller in the NYT, but it wasn't like the young naive Greenwald was unexposed to the anti-war viewpoint.
So when he says there was "united support for the war" he is either lying or has completely and utterly deluded himself.
Basically, he has fabricated this fantasy where the entire media and political establishment were in lock-step support for the war and little ole Greenwald - a constitutional lawyer who read the NYT and New Yorker mind you - was only exposed to lies or at least very little truth and had no way of knowing better otherwise. How could you blame him for that? [end sarcasm]
And here is where it gets interesting. He claims since he wasn't a public figure or writer you can't ridicule him for a personal opinion he wasn't promoting. That might be a half-way decent argument except that he doesn't even believe that himself. Here again is the title of a blog post from a year ago in reference to a poll of all adults that asked about Obama's drone policy:
Repulsive progressive hypocrisy
So why is your average progressive citizen repulsive for holding a personal opinion and not poor, naive, young Greenwald for supporting Bush's war that killed and maimed astronomically more civilians?
The only repulsive hypocrite here is Greenwald.