He's joining Greenwald's venture.... so he slams someone who asks Greenwald some tough questions and he's questioning that guy's journalism? Yeah... that's rich.

FWIW, from what I know Greenwald shouldn't be charged. He's a self-serving narcissist, but there is no evidence that I know of that establishes that he planned the theft of classified information.

Of data mining what he could then leak it. I'm not sure how far back the Snowden-Greenwald relationship goes and who put Snowden up to this hijinks but Greenwald looks like he has been up to his eyebrows in this from the beginning. What we don't yet know is the role Russia had in this, i.e., was Snowden a Russian spy from the get-go and by extension Greenwald as well. Just looks at Snowden's high praise of Russia on civil rights while Kiev burns with Russian support.

But from what I've seen, the evidence against Greenwald is circumstantial.... but I believe he probably DID collude with Snowden. But what I believe and what I can prove are different things.

Snowden ended up stranded in Russia because we revoked his passport. It was not his destination. The US was probably delighted to be able to revoke his passport stranding him in Russia so they could later make Russian spy accusations. Below are links to articles that answer the questions in your post. All of this easily found with Google in about 10 minutes.

Feinstein sees no evidence Snowden spying for Russia
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/01/feinstein-sees-no-evidence-snowden-spying-for-russia-182104.html

Was Edward Snowden a Russian Spy All Along?
http://www.policymic.com/articles/79487/was-edward-snowden-a-russian-spy-all-along
As the New York Times points out, "there has been no public indication that the FBI's investigation of Mr. Snowden's actions … uncovered evidence that Mr. Snowden received help from a foreign intelligence service."

So as much as congressional leaders might hope that Snowden was working as a spy, there is no evidence to back up those claims. But a lack of evidence didn't stop Rogers and Feinstein from speculating on Sunday.

How Glenn Greenwald Began Communicating With NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-glenn-greenwald_n_3416978.html
Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who revealed his identity Sunday, first approached The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald in February (2013) and, by the journalist’s account, said he had information "that would be of great interest.”

Either country. Do you have evidence he was forced to steal files from NSA, if you do then it would help Snowden's case. Since Snowden admitted to having evidence from NSA and said he was Greenwald's source it really did not leave the DOJ much room to overlook crimes committed. It is a natural practice to revoke passports of those charged with felons. It may be possible Snowden was not advised properly or did not know his passport may be revoked but ignorance of the laws does not exempt the person from being charged. Once the information was received by Greenwald then it is stolen property and Greenwald could be charged with receiving stolen property. Greenwald could have notified the proper authorities and turned over the information but instead he chose to use it.

If Greenwald did not want to be questioned by Gregory then he should not have agreed to doing the interview, don't sign on to doing the interview and then cry. Gregory allowed Greenwald to speak, now Greenwald is whining.

And Ellsberg didn't run anywhere, nor did he spend a day in jail.

Snowden had options--he could have gone to the Senate Intel Committee. They have both the clearances and the SCIF to hear any testimony he might want to offer, in camera, out of the eyes and ears of the public. He didn't exercise that option, and now he faces the consequences.

Post 13 made the allegation that perhaps Snowden was a spy. I responded appropriately with factual information that there is no basis to believe Snowden is a spy - that is not mean misdirecting. Perhaps it is the person who did post 13 redirecting away from the David Gregory theme in the original post.

Had my response in post 21 been to the original post then you would be correct. I would've been redirecting. But it was not.

In mentioning our Senate or House Intel committees and their members you seem to forget that they have allowed the intelligence community to lie repeatedly under oath and they knew it. They already knew these abuses were going on but because of their security clearances and confidentiality documents they have signed they cannot or will not come forward for fear of their own prosecution, at worst, or being branded a treasonous person who is unworthy of elected office at the very least. Secondly, by having only private hearings they could never achieve the groundswell of opinion and force to actually get changes made. it took the disillusionment of the Vietnam War and Watergate; then the Church Committee reports to the PUBLIC to get changes made before.

We've been living in the post-911 era where we have sanctioned everything from disappearing people to torture to killing American citizens by drones in foreign countries as perfectly fine. There is absolutely no way legislators who want to reform the intelligence agencies could do so by only having private hearings. The mass population of the US needs to be upset and needs press the legislators to make changes. Otherwise nothing will happen. And it has to happen in public, not in private closed hearings.

Ellsberg didn't run anywhere because he really didn't have to at the time. Ellsberg has spoken up on the Snowden's behalf and has said in his opinion Snowdon had no other option than to leave the country because the current situation is far, far different than it was when Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon papers. Try not to forget that our faithful US government broke into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office to try to get disparaging information about Ellsberg. That was an illegal break-in. Try not to forget what the burglars in the FBI Media, PA, break-in revealed the horrors that our government was doing through Hoover's FBI. Those people certainly did break the law by breaking and entering and stealing FBI documents. But the wrongdoing by our government that they exposed far outweighs the minor wrongdoing they did by breaking and entering to expose it.

Come on--own it. You did do it.

As for Ellsberg, he did go into hiding. Some folks thought he did a bunk to Mexico. He thought about it, lawyered up, and came out to face the music. It was a good decision--a lot of people got behind him because of his willingness to stand and fight.

Just because Ellsberg was right about Ellsberg doesn't necessarily make him right about Snowden or anyone else. Doesn't make him wrong, either. Time will tell, but frankly, time is not wearing well on Edward Snowden. The longer he hangs out in Russia, dropping turds that coincide with US interests and appear timed to trip up diplomatic efforts by the SECSTATE and others--and astonishingly enough, never dropping a single one that makes his hosts look sketchy (something his pal Assange has avoided as well, which makes one wonder who is paying for his incidental expenses) --the more he looks like a tool of Putin, even if he isn't one.

Seriously.

What we don't yet know?

Followed by suspicion and paranoia?

Get a grip.

And it was front loaded with the assertion that Snowden was a tratior...(tried by him and found guilty) and then asking why Grenwald should not be guilty too.
Also known as a beat your wife question...When did you stop beating your wife?

Totally against all principles of journalism.

Was about to post the exact same position and then I saw your post.

I'll just tag onto yours.

It is not often that I get in first...and usually have to do what you did...just tag onto others.

Gregory asked why he shouldn't be CHARGED, not why wasn't he guilty.

Snowden, whatever you think of him, has admitted to lying when taking an oath (punishable as perjury) and theft of classified information. Even if you think what he revealed is mitigating, he DID those thing. IMO, he also revealed data from perfectly legitimate foreign intelligence operations, which if not treason (I don't actually think it fits the definition of treason) is CERTAINLY a crime worthy of punishment.

I find the argument that Snowden gets a pass on breaking the law in those cases (stuff he ADMITS to) to be very troublesome. It smacks of ends justifying means. And yes, so do the invasive NSA activities.

But let's not play the game of he's a bastard, but he's OUR bastard so he gets a pass. Sloppy reasoning is still sloppy even if folks might be inclined to like what the guy did.

If NSA officials were breaking the law with some of their programs, prosecute them too.

But the main thing I find incredibly unethical is Taibbi getting all defensive over his new boss. Yeah... HE doesn't have an agenda.

He front loaded it with the assumption that Snowden was guilty of treason.

And he did not lie when the took the oath to keep it secret...he did not know what he was swearing to keep secert...and sense he took an oath in the military to defend and protect the Constitution that oath has precedent over the promise to keep secret, when the information is a violation of the constitution.
I think he kept his oath to the country above his promise to Booz Allen...that makes him a patriot not a traitor...unless you think the corporation is above the country.
Daniel Elsburg broke the law too...and for the same reason.

Yes and Tailbbi is the problem...got it...shoot that fucking messenger.

You'll pretty much say and believe anything to justify your position.

I pretty much believe NO ONE is above the law. The ends do NOT justify the means. I say prosecute EVERYONE who broke the law here.

It's pathetic.

for breaching said contract.

him out publicly like this.

K&R.

As is plain to anyone who watches his show.

But Greenwald isn't *that* much higher on the journalistic evolutionary chart...

we should show our appreciation, even if they guy is a jerk. You could call it positive feedback.

Here is some information on the award: http://www.liu.edu/polk

Two reporters at Inside Edition, Matt Meagher and Tim Peek, each won a Polk Award after O'Reilly left the show.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/565.html

In any case, I believe the Polk Award panel is more qualified to judge the quality of a journalist's reporting than some poster on a web site.

I think the standards for the award have eased slightly down the years.

They even gave a Nobel Peace Prize to Obama, for whatever reason.

Obama's election signaled an enormous sea change in the political landscape of our nation, and that's what the prize was articulating.

And last time I checked, we didn't have hundreds of thousands of uniformed personnel in Iraq, the number in the Stan is decreasing every day, we didn't go to war with either Syria or Iran, so in the "peace" department, I'd say my brother was doing considerably better than McCain or RMoney might have managed.

YMMV...but don't look at the drawdown numbers coming out of the Pentagon--it could result in cognitive dissonance.

It happens to the most prestigious awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize - recall how it was also awarded to Henry Kissinger, whom I think we can all agree was definitely not deserving. But does that automatically mean that all the other recipients are somehow undeserving?

And yes, sometimes awards are granted in error, indeed. And occasionally, someone can hit the nail on the head, once, or even twice.

I'll happily concede that he CLAIMED to have won one. Feel better now? Pompous rage abating? Can you climb down off that high horse, now, before you get a nosebleed?

Get over yourself, LA. You're getting overly PERSONAL and your animosity is OBVIOUS.

No need to lose your cool, now. It's just the internet.

Polk awards are not awarded to things. They are awarded to people. Two reporters won Polk awards for their investigative reporting around a specific issue after O'Reilly left the show.

And I said that you were attempting to spread a lie. Not that you were lying yourself.

I hope I don't disappoint but my cool is snugly intact, so much so that even my cool is chill.

Excuse me, I have to get ready for my part time job artificially inseminating cows.

Here's a link for you--I provided it elsewhere but apparently you were too wrapped up in your sanctimony to click on it and read it. http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/peabodyfacts1.htm

That's where the whole business started. Later, when O'Reilly was fighting with Al Franken, he dialed it back to a Polk...or perhaps YOU forgot about that (or were maybe too young to remember)?

are awarded to specific reporters for doing a specific investigation.

So O'Reilly lied twice. And you are promoting that lie twice.

Hey! I love my part time job!

I am so low down, babeeeee... I am down.

And stay off my lawn.

I can't help but notice that you will do everything and anything to avoid talking about the OP.

That's what people do when they don't have an argument. And you don't have one.

They are supposed to ask the tough questions--the ones that everyone is THINKING. It doesn't necessarily mean they "agree" with the questions they ask--it's just that a good journalist will cover the bases. I guess some bases are a bit uncomfortable..?

They aren't supposed to kiss their subjects and fawn over them, and that, it would seem, is what Taibbi wants Gregory to do. That's not journalism--that's something else entirely. They do that kind of thing very well over at RT....

is promulgating the meme that investigative, adversarial journalism is a crime. In a healthy democracy investigative adversarial journalism is an absolute necessity to ensure the electorate is informed and the democracy functions.

That's the kind of thing Queen Ann of Romney might say, or Barbara Bush...not a journalist.

The answer to a tough question is a frank answer. Or is "adversarial journalism" only "not a crime" when Greenwald and Taibbi do it?

Instead, Taibbi got personal and insulting--which displayed a major weakness on his part. The fact that he is going to work for Greenwald's master, too, makes anything he has to say a bit, well, suspect, and colored by his OWN avarice.

See? There can be two sides to every story, but excoriating someone for asking the questions from "the other side" is rather like how Maduro and Putin handle dissent--telling people to STFU, calling them names.

"How DARE you ask that question!" or "You're a shitty journalist, I hate you!!!" only tells me that someone has hit a nerve. Taibbi is protecting his turf and his wallet--and that's quite obvious, given his new association.

more than I trust yours, since you simply have a vendetta against Greenwald and will say or do literally anything to cast aspersion on his work.

makes me not want to even discuss anything with you. "Waaaah, you hate Greenwald!!!" is not accurate. I am troubled by his obvious monetization of this matter, I find the drip-drip-drip of leaks, following the SECSTATE around the globe, both curious and political (and to the benefit of Vladdie Putin--someone, who, oddly enough, Matt Taibbi suggested had a "little boy" problem in at least one article) and I suspect his motives are less than pure. His rage when a colleague dropped a "research primer" sort of book on Snowden was most definitely over the top, odd, and unprofessional.

Of course, he has a book dropping on Snowden himself in a month or two, and I would speculate that he feared that other Guardian reporter would steal a piece of his Snowden pie.

as a criticism of Matt Taibbi and a defense of David Gregory.

For the record, I agree that a journalist's job is not to fawn over his/her subjects, and it is indeed to ask the tough questions. Taibbi (and Greenwald, for that matter) are examples of the latter, while Gregory is THE poster boy for the former. Gregory coddles the powerful and reserves the 'tough questions' for people who make those powerful people uncomfortable.

Your post above may very well have been the funniest, upside-down, pretzel-logic post I've read since the days of the Bush Administration.

Taibbi is an investigative journalist who covers issues that make influential people uncomfortable. David Gregory is little more than a shill for the business and political establishment who spends his time helping those people promote their narratives. One of them, as we see here, was painting leakers and investigative journalists as criminals.

And sure, he often investigates things and people, but he imbues his writing with his own perceptions and biases. As I said in another post, there's nothing wrong with that, but he is not--not by a long shot-an impartial reporter. If he likes a person, he'll elevate or excuse them. If he doesn't, he'll excoriate them.

Gregory did some respectable work during the Bush administration. He was the only one asking questions that others hesitated to ask for fear of losing access. He's since gone for the easy job and the good money, which is sort of the same thing Taibbi and Greenwald have just done.

I'd even accept and example of him simply allowing the subject to push a lie without challenging it.

and he called Tom Tancredo "a vengeful midget."

JURY--TAKE NOTICE, those are not MY words, they are Matt Taibi's. I personally find that "r" word offensive and I am sensitive enough to know that the "M" word is objectionable to many individuals of smaller stature.



Now, if that's how "journalists" talk to you, I can't change your mind.

I'm not averring that he doesn't put together a cracking good read, but what he writes are investigative "perspective" pieces--there's opinion, moralizing and a heaping help of "POV" in his stuff.

And that's not JOURNALISM. Sorry.

failing that, giving them the slack that Gregory gives his guests each week, and letting them lie without any challenge.

I never claimed Taibbi didn't have opinions. Journalists can have opinions, you know.

But so long as you brought it up, let me point out that I'm simply telling you that journalists refrain from expressing their opinions as a function of their position. You don't hear Brian Williams calling Dumbya the "r" word (something Taibbi did) on the NBC Nightly News, now, do you?

He adored Cindy Sheehan, until he decided that she was too woo-woo for him. There's some fawning for ya. He loved him some Ron Paul, until he decided he couldn't vote for him. He's rather a fickle fawner, but he certainly does fawn. If you know him so well, you're familiar with his work--when he admires people, he fawns--it comes through in his writing, and when he dislikes them, he'll whip out the "r" word or the "m" word, as I illustrated in a previous post. That's not what journalists do.

If not, you're excoriated. This isn't news, and it's shouldn't be surprising.

That's not reporting, that's commentary/editorializing. Nothing wrong with it, but it is what it is. He's more of a raconteur of the current scene than an impartial pair of eyes. He brings his beliefs and pre-suppositions and biases with him.

Samples (fairly well written considering he had a drug problem at the time): http://www.exile.ru/authors/detail.php?ID=2281

He's all over the web, there's stuff that is more current/better. Rolling Stone has him, so do others. He is not an impartial observer/reporter.

Gregory, on the other hand, does the bidding of those who are destroying this country.

Because both sides had horses and hats.

This defense of that shill David Gregory as being anything comparable to an investigative journalist nowadays is just laughable.

I said, if you'd look through my comments, that David Gregory is a "presenter" now and Matt Taibbi writes compelling, opinionated investigative articles. When you call people names--and Taibbi does that--you aren't a journalist.

Is the only way you can make your case to misrepresent what people actually say? That speaks ill of you.

Journalists do not use the sort of excoriating language he uses routinely.

Gregory is now a television host/moderator of a morning talker. He's an interviewer, what in UK is termed a "presenter."

are not "journalists." They are nonfiction writers with a POV.

...and unkike right-wing "media" he asked it right to Greenwald's face and gave him an opportunity to tell his side and give his opinion an open airing.

I think that there are very few questions that are out of bounds, the sign of a "real" journalist is that they ask the question for the purpose of finding out information. This is as opposed to right-wing "media" who ask an inflammatory question, just to use the question to say, or imply something nasty.

I didn't see the interview, but Greenwald should have taken advantage of the opportunity of the question to open up, and thoroughly vent his side.

irrelevant. That is a great question, and, like you I didn't see the interview, but this would seem to give Greenwald a great opportunity. I am a little surprised that Matt Taibbi used that as an example. Taibbi is an absolutely great journalist, and there are so many examples of Gregory being a jerk.

stating what a journalists job is.
""Look, this is the job. The job is we're supposed to report the truth. If whistle blowers come forward, we're supposed to take the risk along with those whistleblowers and society long ago decided we should have protections when we do this."
He is saying that IF Gregory were a journalist instead of a propagandist, he would know why Greenwald was helping a very important whistleblowing moment (no matter how you feel about those involved).
Snowdens documents opened up a much needed discussion, worldwide.
"Does anyone have the right to spy on everyone?"
Greenwald did his real journalistic job and for that I thank him.

Gregory but see nothing wrong with his question.

some of you are extra sensitive about mr snowden and his journalist wave riding friend

Apparently, Gregory thinks that constitutes a crime.

shouldn't YOU be charged with a crime?

He's not there to get a story-- he's there to help the powers that be sell their bullshit.

His predecessor, Tim Russert, admitted it flatly once, saying that his job was 'not to challenge his guests, but to get their version of events on the record'. In other words, uncritically parroting the chosen narrative of the people in charge. In other other words, propaganda.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

I don't understand your point. Gregory is justified in making investigative journalism out to be a crime because... Greenwald went on his show? Huh?

IIRC, Greenwald did just fine defending himself in this instance, and thoroughly rubbed Gregory's already-brown nose in his own propaganda bullshit when he asked that question.

so it all evens out, I guess.

They're mouthpieces for power.

He doesn't wanna lose his invites to power lunches and dinners by, you know, asking actual questions.

he ever did in his miserable stinking ass licking career.

It is often said that if we had a draft, we never would have had those two outrageous Bush wars. Instead we spent trillions to hire people mostly from the bottom of the economic ladder to do this for us. Meanwhile Bush said the only thing anybody else needed to do was to go out and spend some money.

Any American under age 50 has never lived with any real adversity, at least nothing that involved a shared sacrifice. And as a consequence these generations are the most narcissistic, self-centered in our country's history.

That isn't news. It is a common observation. What may not be quite as obvious is that most of today's generation of "journalists" have never had to do anything remotely resembling real journalism. In the past, journalists understood their job was to relentlessly push for the truth, even it that meant ruffling feathers, or worse. None of Gregory's cohort has ever done anything of the sort. They are all just empty vests with pretty faces , who can be trusted to never rock the boat. Nobody should expect that to change absent a major period of adversity.