Glenn Greenwald Gets Some Credit, Some Blame

Today I was given some pause before writing this post by a friend who made what I thought was a crack about Glenn Greenwald. But now that it’s been cleared up, I continue with my original idea, or more appropriately, with a little praise.

Once you’ve taken some time to survey the newspapers of the world, you come to see how the acclaimed, even purportedly left-leaning New York Times echoes a very specific American agenda which is first pronounced by the government. This is too general a remark to be completely true because, for example, Times reporters did break the story on Bush’s NSA wiretapping program, though its editors delayed publication for more than a year because of White House pressure.

Another example of how the Times cosigns America’s hypocritical foreign policy is in its reporting on China. Greenwald uses this same example is his recent post on what the Times calls torture (the questionable treatment of prisoners by foreign governments) and what it doesn’t (questionable treatment of prisoners by the American government).

Greenwald is a consistent if mellow voice of the American left and it’s better he’s there at Salon than absent. He gets credit for being able to see further than the myopic vision of the American press, restricted by a government trying desperately to salvage our superpower status. In the post about the New York Times Greenwald wrote (link above), his conclusion is a whimper while it could have been a bang. He meekly asks the question if the Times is engaging in propaganda, which I doubt it is intentionally, while he should instead be making a point and taking a stance.

It would be easy, and partially correct, to say that his last question in the post is rhetorical; the answer forgone. But the American political discourse is as slippery as a snake covered in oil, so when facts support a point, the point must be made!

Photo courtesy of Glenn Greenwald via Wikimedia Commons.