Punks Like You Get Beat Up, Stomped Unconscious And Smacked With The Heater»

Jonathan Schwarz slices some schmaltz off of Jeff Goldberg:

God, it would be SO GREAT if there were some invention that would give Goldberg enough room to demonstrate with evidence that Silverstein is ethically-challenged and his claim has been discredited. Even better would be if this invention allowed Goldberg to easily direct readers’ attention to such evidence elsewhere, thereby “linking” his post to it.

Perhaps someday science will provide us with such a glorious new means of communication. Certainly if it ever exists, Jeffrey Goldberg will make full use of it. He hates being forced to baldly assert things as fact and expect everyone to take his word for it. But given the internet’s terrible shortcomings, he has no other choice.

Muthaf****r, You STUPID?»

I don’t know what Steve Hayes is thinking calling someone else dishonest, but it sure is funny.

I Was Wrong And I Just Can’t Live Without You»

In the Derridean world of American conservatism, the mission will always-already have been accomplished!

Next Time Grown Folks Talking, B****, Close Your Mouth»

Speaking of the journalistic version of Jeffrey Atkins, yesterday he suggested a certain reporter who called him on his bullshit was “ethically-challenged.” Goldberg, of course, was too cowardly to say the reporter’s name, but he was talking about my friend Ken Silverstein, a real investigative reporter and Los Angeles Times vet who’s now Washington editor of Harper’s. Ken responds here:

Presumably I am “ethically-challenged” because I went undercover for a story last year in which I posed as a flunky for the Stalinist government of Turkmenistan and tricked several top Washington lobbying firms into offering, for huge fees, to improve that regime’s image. Which, though I admit to a certain bias here, strikes me as being a lot less ethically-challenged than Goldberg having written articles in the run-up to the Iraq War that read like Bush Administration talking points on Saddam Hussein having WMD stocks and ample ties to Al Qaeda. Goldberg so slavishly aped the administration’s views that President Bush and Vice President Cheney both publicly cited his work in making the case for war.

You know, it’s funny. Goldberg yesterday dissed the blogosphere for not doing more reporting. (See Ezra’s response.) But an informal survey I’ve conducted of U.S. national-security journos in Washington, Iraq and Lebanon reveals an interesting fact: no one respects Goldberg’s work. Lebanon reporters to this day laugh at his Hezbollah pieces in the New Yorker. Put more precisely, no one who does actual national-security reporting respects Goldberg. Only editors who don’t, you know, report on this stuff. Ironic, huh?

We Don’t Respect You Or Take You Serious»

Jeffrey Goldberg has a bitchy post about how blogging sucks because people are mean to you. One would think a sensible answer would be not to blog, but that would require less self-regard than Goldberg possesses. Andrew Sullivan, he reports, tries to calm him down:

“Calling you an asshole is just the blogosphere’s way of saying hello,” he said.

Actually, sometimes it’s just the blogosphere’s way of calling you an asshole, you asshole! Here’s another way: How about you come clean about your bullshit reporting, in which you credulously peddled the self-serving claims of Kurdish intelligence officials that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaeda? Goldberg tries to slip in a reference to how that charge is “a discredited accusation,” which is yet another dishonesty from him. Hey Jeff! You have a blog now! You don’t want people to call you a fake reporter? Then explain yourself. Publicly.

Then he goes after bloggers for not reporting. And you know, he’s right! Except for, oh, I dunno, Paul Kiel, Ken Silverstein, Justin Rood, Bill Roggio, Michael Yon, Marcy Wheeler, Kriston Capps, Greg Sargent — *deep breath* — Marc Ambinder, Dana Goldstein, Moe Tkacik, Megan Carpentier, myself… But why should not knowing what he’s talking about stop Goldberg? He’s built an entire career on it.