Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

More from The Daily Caller today, detailing the political connections on the Journolist, where Obama operatives, Democratic political strategists, and liberal media types mixed:

Despite its name, membership in the liberal online community Journolist wasn’t limited to journalists. Present among the bloggers, reporters and editors were a number of professional political operatives, including top White House economic advisors, key Obama political appointees, and Democratic campaign veterans. Some left government to join Journolist. Others took the opposite route. A few contributed to Journolist from their perches in politics. At times, it became difficult to tell who was supposed to be covering policy and who was trying to make it.

Two of the administration’s chief economic advisors, Jared Bernstein, the vice president’s top economist, and Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, were members of Journolist until they began working officially for Obama.

Ilan Goldenberg, now an advisor on Middle East policy at the Pentagon, was a member until he joined the administration. Moira Whelan left Journolist to work at the Department of Homeland Security .

Anne-Marie Slaughter left to work at the State Department. Former Journolist member Ben Brandzel is now a top staffer at Organizing for America, the political arm of the Obama White House.

Josh Orton, a former spokesman for Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NM)[sic - should be NV], became Obama’s deputy director of new media during the 2008 presidential campaign. After the election, he joined Journolist.

Brent Bozell has 20 questions for The Washington Post about its knowledge of and involvement with the Journolist.

I have just one question:

In which Washington, D.C. area parking garage will the entire Journolist archive be handed over to us?

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Now I Am A Hero, Too
Journolist Trig Emails - All About The Story Line

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The JournoList started by Ezra Klein as a place where liberal media elites could share ideas (i.e., make sure they had their stories straight) has been exposed as a repository of liberal elite media trash talk. But it gets worse. Klein took credit for designating the gathering the JournoList:

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy? Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

There is a British blog called JournoList, which describes itself as "an annotated list of sites chosen to help reporters, writers and editors make good use of the Internet."

OMG, did Klein plagiarize the original JournoList? If so, the JournoListas are not even real JournoListas, they are PlagiarListas writing on the PlagiarList.

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See these related posts: Liberal Ugliness Revealed On The JournoList; Release ALL The E-Mails, Ezra, My First Tweet: The JournoList Sure Has A Lot Of Anti-Semitic Commenters, Ezra Klein Smears Ann Althouse.

Ezra Klein, who organized the Journolist and now blogs at The Washington Post, declares that the expose by The Daily Caller has descended from tragedy into farce.

The proof? Klein feels that The Daily Caller is not disclosing enough of the e-mails, which Klein feels would vindicate Klein and others, and prove there was no grand conspiracy.

Klein writes today:

Which brings us to the Daily Caller. There might be some interesting stories to write about a trove of 25,000+ e-mails -- though, in reality, most of them would say something like "lots of people have lots of different opinions" -- but their approach has been to cherrypick the few snippets that support the most sensational headlines, and then attribute them to "Journolist," or "journalists," as opposed to whichever specific person is being quoted.

Releasing all the e-mails is the simple solution, one I proposed on March 26, 2009, when the existence of the Journolist was first revealed and the issue was extreme nastiness directed at Marty Peretz of The New Republic. Given that there were hundreds of participants, the authors had no reasonable expectation of privacy.

At the time, Klein explained the purpose of the Journolist as follows (emphasis mine):

Journolist is meant to serve a very specific purpose that's actually related to my experience building this blog. The work of this site has always been to illuminate standard political reporting with expert policy commentary. In that, I've been helped by the many experts who have adopted the medium as their own: Mark Thoma, Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, Matthew Holt, Peter Orszag, Andrew Gelman, Larry Bartels, Dani Rodrik, John Sides, among others. As a journalist, it's hard to always know who to call or which questions to ask. The joy of those blogs is that I don't have to guess what experts think is important: They simply explain what they think is important and I can use, or follow-up on, the information.

I responded that based upon the e-mails revealed in March 2009, there was (emphasis added):

"[n]ot much policy exchange here. This is how the liberal journalist elites talk when they think no one is listening. Like Barack Obama in San Francisco.

And Ezra Klein's explanation is at best misleading, at worst an outright lie. So Ezra, release ALL the e-mails.

Now that Klein again is claiming the e-mails are being taken out of context, and that the purpose of the Journolist was innocent and innocuous, Klein can set the record straight.

But he will not. In his post today Klein wrote:

And as for the obvious question -- why don't I just release all the e-mails? -- the answer is that I still believe people have the right to assume privacy when they send e-mails to an off-the-record list. They should be careful about what they write, but that's a different question.

Too late for that.

Klein accuses The Daily Caller of being shameless publicity hounds who take e-mails out of context to generate website traffic. Prove it.

Update: Mark Tapscott, First came Climategate, now it’s JournoList; Who’s next for an email scandal?

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Related Posts:
Release ALL The E-Mails, Ezra
Liberal Ugliness Revealed On The JournoList
Yes, Liberal Journalists Did Manipulate The 2008 Election

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On February 18, 2010, I wrote a post titled Progressive Bloggers In The Wizard of Oz, about a trip by several "progressive" bloggers to meet at The White House with Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist to Vice President Joe Biden.

The post carried a photo of serious-looking faces reflecting what I believed -- tongue in cheek -- was "the moment they realized that they were not going to get to meet with the 'chief economist to President Barack Obama.'"

Boy, was I wrong. It was more like a reunion. Of Journolistas.



The "Chief Economist to Vice President Joe Biden" was none other than Journalista Jared Bernstein, who -- thanks to a post at Volokh Conspiracy (via Instapundit)-- I just learned was an adviser to the Obama campaign in 2008 when he was active on the Journolist:

One question that has arisen in the last week is how closely JournoList members, not only discussed how to shape the news to advance the fortunes of Barack Obama, but coordinated with the Obama campaign. Jared Bernstein’s position as an unpaid adviser and surrogate shows that there was at least one direct link between JournoList and the Obama campaign.

In attendance for the meeting at the White House were fellow Journolistas Matthew Yglesias (Think Progress), Tim Fernholz (American Prospect) and Chris Hayes (The Nation). One of the other bloggers in attendance was Oliver Willis, whose name has not surfaced on the Journolist, but who works for Media Matters, so he is practically an Honorary Journolista.

So... An Obama campaign operative interacted on the Journolist with sympathetic media types in the run-up to the election, and then rewarded favored Journolistas with a visit to the White House.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Update: Jennifer Rubin notices the lack of diversity on the Journolist (something I also noted in my February post): "The angry white men and the hate-filled political marionettes aren’t on talk radio. They’re on Journolist."

Update 7-24-2010: iOwnTheWorld (via Instapundit) has photographic proof of the lack of Journolistic diversity.

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Related Posts:
Put Your Emails Where Your Mouth Is
It Begins: Journolistas Start Preemptive Confessions
Enlighten Us, Ezra, Release All The Emails

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The JournoList was revealed by Politico. The founder of the JournoList, Ezra Klein, explained the purpose as follows (emphasis mine):

Journolist is meant to serve a very specific purpose that's actually related to my experience building this blog. The work of this site has always been to illuminate standard political reporting with expert policy commentary. In that, I've been helped by the many experts who have adopted the medium as their own: Mark Thoma, Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, Matthew Holt, Peter Orszag, Andrew Gelman, Larry Bartels, Dani Rodrik, John Sides, among others. As a journalist, it's hard to always know who to call or which questions to ask. The joy of those blogs is that I don't have to guess what experts think is important: They simply explain what they think is important and I can use, or follow-up on, the information.

Oh really. That explanation worked only when the e-mails were secret. Now one of the e-mail chains has been revealed by Mickey Kaus at Slate, and it is not pretty. Not much policy wonking, and lot of name called directed at Marty Peretz (see related post). Here are a selection of the exhanges posted at Slate (the term "[snip]" was inserted by Kauss to remove defamatory portions of the e-mails):

From: Chris Hayes Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:43:51 -0700 (PDT) Local: Tues, Mar 24 2009 1:43 pm Subject: BREAKING: Marty Peretz is a Crazy-Ass Racist Yglesias
points out on his Twitter feed that Peretz "has ethnic dislikes beyond arabs" I know this is a tiresome, but this kind of explicit racism is really, really, really fucked.

From: Matthew Yglesias ...@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:00:31 -0400 Local: Tues, Mar 24 2009 2:00 pm Subject: Re: [JournoList] BREAKING: Marty Peretz is a Crazy-Ass Racist I also read on TNR.com today that Jonah Goldberg, who believes that everyone on this list is a fascist, is "good-humored," while Keith Olbermann's work is best analogized to Glenn Beck or Michael Savage.

From: Michael Cohen ...@yahoo.com> Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:51:25 -0700 PDT) Local: Tues, Mar 24 2009 2:51 pm Subject: Re: [JournoList] Re: BREAKING: Marty Peretz is a Crazy-Ass Racist Personally, I find Olbermann insufferable, but I'm not sure I buy the comparison. Michael Savage is a complete nut job and if he wasn't on radio he would probably be standing on a street corner with a bullhorn bitching about socialism.

From: Eric Alterman ...@aol.com> Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:56:38 -0700 (PDT) Local: Tues, Mar 24 2009 2:56 pm Subject: Re: BREAKING: Marty Peretz is a crazy-Ass Racist Quit lying about my record, Jonathan Chait. Or at least check the archives before descinding into Kirchickism. What I posted about Eve was an article I PUBLISHED. It could hardly have been going behind her back to PUBLISH an article, could it? What I explained when you last leveled this false accusation ... [SNIP] ... was the fact that had I known Eve was on the list, I would not have posted it here, even though it was relevant to the discussion at hand, because a) I had no wish to hurt the feelings of someone I had never met, and b) this is no less important, I respect the value of civility on this list. As you well know, there are plenty of attacks going on between yourself, Matt, Ezra, Spencer, and myself that do not make it onto this list because we respect the importance of civility here. Or at least we did.... I expect Ezra will want to intervene here, but please do feel free to forward our exchange to Marty. I can only imagine how proud he'd be....

From: Eric Alterman ...@aol.com> Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:13:39 -0700 (PDT) Local: Tues, Mar 24 2009 4:13 pm Subject: Re: BREAKING: Marty Peretz is a Crazy-Ass Racist For the record boss man, I'm done. I merely responded to a series of false accusations made about me by Mr. Chait. You'll note that I manfully (and womanfully) resisted the urge to join in the Marty bashing until lied about above...

Not much policy exchange here. This is how the liberal journalist elites talk when they think no one is listening. Like Barack Obama in San Francisco.

And Ezra Klein's explanation is at best misleading, at worst an outright lie. So Ezra, release ALL the e-mails.

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See these related posts: Liberal Ugliness Revealed On The JournoList; The JournoList Should Be Called The PlagiarList, My First Tweet: The JournoList Sure Has A Lot Of Anti-Semitic Commenters, Ezra Klein Smears Ann Althouse.

Glenn Reynolds writes in the Knoxville News today about the Journolist, Controversy proves collusion among liberal journalists:

Like most email lists, much of the content was profane or sophomoric - like [Eric] Alterman's reference to Bush supporters as "f***ing Nascar retards," public radio producer Sarah Spitz's expressed desire to stand by laughing as Rush Limbaugh expired from a heart attack, or blogger Spencer Ackerman's fantasies about shoving conservative pundits through plate-glass windows. Such explosions might raise doubts about these figures' objectivity or ability to cover news honestly, but overall they are more embarrassing than incriminating.

Let's remember that these people were the cream of the crop of our elite academic and journalistic institutions, people who regularly sneer at the supposed crudeness of Tea Party supporters.

These private e-mails revealed the phoniness of the persona the Journolistas presented to the public.

In March 2009, after the first leaks of Journolist e-mails, I pointed to the Liberal Ugliness Revealed On The JournoList:

What the JournoList reveals is that so much of liberalism as perpetuated by liberal bloggers and columnists is a facade, a veritable Potemkin Village of humane emotions hiding an ugly truth of egotistical anger and an obsessive need to attack others to prove to their own self-worth. And all this is gleaned from a single JournoListic thread.

Who is Eric Alterman, the person referenced in Reynold's column as calling Bush supporters "f-ing NASCAR retards"? He is a "Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism" at Brooklyn College and one of the most prominent liberal thinkers, writing for The Nation, among other liberal publications.

As to Alterman, in my post in March 2009 I quoted one of his e-mail exchanges in which he argued that the real nastiness among the Journolistas should kept off-list "because we respect the importance of civility here."

So calling people "f-ing NASCAR retards" was not even the worst of it, just the worst of what they put on the Journolist.

And by the way, Alterman regrets the choice of words but not the concept.

As it turns out, the leak of the Journolist archive revealed not just what the Journolistas said in private, but also who they are.

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The JournoList has evoked much commentary. But a bigger question is being missed. What lurks beneath the outward gentility and civility of the most enlightened liberal bloggers and columnists?

Apparently it is not pretty. Some people expressed surprise at the ugly tone of the thread released by Mickey Kaus, in which the JournoListas lashed out at Marty Peretz. But the trash talking on the JournoList itself was a ruse for some deeper level of cat-fighting that goes on off-list.

Note this comment by Eric Alterman directed at Jonathan Chait, who had questioned whether "the point of this [is] to create a forum where certain people can be criticized (or, more precisely, called names) without the criticizer having to fear a response?" Alterman responded, in part, as follows (emphasis mine):

Quit lying about my record, Jonathan Chait.... As you well know, there are plenty of attacks going on between yourself, Matt, Ezra, Spencer, and myself that do not make it onto this list because we respect the importance of civility here. Or at least we did.... I expect Ezra will want to intervene here, but please do feel free to forward our exchange to Marty. I can only imagine how proud he'd be....

So the trash talk on-list pales in comparison to the fighting off-list, according to Alterman. What does that say about these oh-so-smart people who devote so much of their lives to attacking Bush (still), Republicans, conservatives, plumbers, moose-hunting moms, and everyone else who does not fit their paradigm of a compassionate and intelligent American?

What the JournoList reveals is that so much of liberalism as perpetuated by liberal bloggers and columnists is a facade, a veritable Potemkin Village of humane emotions hiding an ugly truth of egotistical anger and an obsessive need to attack others to prove to their own self-worth. And all this is gleaned from a single JournoListic thread.

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See these related posts: The JournoList Should Be Called The PlagiarList, Release ALL The E-Mails, Ezra, My First Tweet: The JournoList Sure Has A Lot Of Anti-Semitic Commenters, Ezra Klein Smears Ann Althouse.

How did I miss this. Did The Daily Caller intend it?

By "it," I mean the significance of the fact that the Journolist emails about Trig Palin were posted today. In my post about the emails, I gave no note to the date.

Sarah Palin issued a Facebook post late today, in which she noted that today is the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (emphasis mine):

Journey into the Media’s Heart of Darkness

How ironic that on a day when we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, The Daily Caller released 15 pages of JournoListers’ email exchanges about a dark and demented conspiracy regarding my son, Trig.

It’s tough to fittingly describe these numerous members of the mainstream media who actively engaged in the debate about this conspiracy back when I was first introduced as John McCain’s running mate, and it’s impossible to legitimize any “prominent” media publication that continues to traffic in this bizarre narrative today.

It wasn’t just a few fringe characters in that JournoList discussion. It included writers for major newspapers, magazines, and online news publications. Those participating in this immature exchange in attempts to plant seeds of doubt and falsely accuse even included a famous historian.

This JournoList exchange exposes the warped nature of today’s media, thus explaining why many of us are forced, in fairness to the public, to utilize other mediums to communicate until the mainstream media wakes up and begins respecting the public’s intelligence and desire for truth in reporting. There is a sickness and darkness in today’s liberal media. With revelations like the JournoList exchanges, may the light keep shining to expose the problem.

It’s always darkest before the dawn. My hope, therefore, is that today, marking the anniversary of our nation’s attempt to show respect for our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters with special needs, will also mark the beginning of a new, more respectful discourse among members of our media who at least aspire to be fair and objective.

- Sarah Palin

As I documented earlier, in their email exchanges the Journolistas were worried that assailing Sarah Palin over Trig's birth might backfire.

At least the Journolistas were right about one thing.

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Related Posts:
Journolist Trig Emails - All About The Story Line
WikiLeaks And Journolists
What William F. Buckley, Jr. Would Say About The Journolist

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I have posted before about the left-wing blogosphere's obsession with mocking Trig Palin and attacking Sarah Palin for bringing Trig on stage during the campaign.

Now, in the latest revelations from the Journolist archives, The Daily Caller reprints Journolist emails regarding Trig. And obsessed with Trig they were, filling 15 screens in The Daily Caller post.

BUT, the emails were not what I expected. None of the Trig bashing that was prevalent in the blogosphere and even the mainstream media. Little talk of abortion, again, unlike the public attacks on Sarah.

While it was clear that just days after her nomination Sarah Palin was widely hated by those on the Journolist, at least those who wrote emails had not yet exhibited full blown Palin Derangement Syndrome.

Rather, the focus was on whether to jump on the bandwagon promoted by Andrew Sullivan and many others that Trig was Sarah's grandchild not child, and that Bristol Palin was the real mother. As documented here before, this was a very widespread point of attack immediately after Sarah was nominated, and by no means limited to Andrew Sullivan.

Some of the comments, to be fair, were benign and even protective. For example, Mark Kleiman of the Reality Based Community [sic] was all in favor of attacking Sarah on numerous points, but warned others "But leave the kid alone." Ezra Klein, founder of the Journolist, wrote: "By all accounts she’s a wonderful mother, and devoted to her fifth son [sic]. Leave this be."

A common point throughout the e-mails was that it was better to leave the issue of parentage alone because it could backfire politically.

Katha Pollit of The Nation cautioned:

If this baby story is true, palin will come out looking like a hero — she stepped in when her teen freaked out, threatened suicide, whatever. She went to extraordinary lengths, like a mother should do, to protect her daughter and solve the problem! No abortion necessary! Another pro-life fable for our times.

Shannon Brownlee of the New America Foundation took a similar line:

Katha’s point is that while some might find it reprehensible to raise a grandchild as your own, many if not most American’s don’t share that view. If the point of investigating this is to discredit Palin and show her up as an unfit mother and therefore unfit VP, the story may backfire. She comes out looking like a heroine not a villain.

The other theme was that it might be a set-up.

Lindsay Beyerstein, an author who blogged at numberous websites, warned that it could be a Republican dirty trick:

In the post-Rathergate era, journalists should be on their guard for Republican dirty tricks.

If this story gains traction, regardless of its truth or falsity, the Republicans will take steps to neutralize the meme.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the McCain campaign were to leak doctored evidence for the sole purpose of discrediting it and destroying the journalist who published it. That’s probably what the Killian memos were.

We should also be on guard for “evidence” falling into the lap of an unknown and easily discredited figure. That’s probably what Rove did to neutralize the allegations of cocaine use by George W. Bush, lo these many years ago.

If apparently well-substantiated allegations emerge, we should be alert for the story behind the story, so to speak.

Mark Kleiman reiterated this fear of a set up:

Politically, this smells like a red herring and a trap, and I think that the revelation that someone was sniffing around about it would outrage large numbers of voters. Palin’s public life presents a target-rich environment for
investigation.

So this story desperately needs a good leaving-alone.

Adam Serwer of The American Prospect also smelled a set-up:

I gotta say, if this is much ado about nothing, the McCain campaign may be very happy to air these rumors in public. It gives them their first big opportunity to say that she’s being attacked unfairly, and because Democrats are sexist.

Rick Perlstein who worked for the Campaign for America's Future, suggested a reporter should obtain medial information about the Palins (which probably would be a violation of law) on the sly:

Remember how Eagleton went down: a reporter got a tip from someone who actually turned out (believe it or not, Nixon had nothing to do with it) to be a McGovern supporter worried he’d drag down the ticket. The reporter went to the hospital where Eagleton had allegedly been treated and said he was there to discuss Eagleton’s treatment, and an indiscreet hospital employee said something like s/he thought someone would find out about Eagleton’s mental problems (check this out; I’mworking from memory).

It’s not like an enterprising reporter couldn’t try the same thing today.

Of all the banter, perhaps the most important big picture item is that the discussion frequently centered on whether the story was worth running. This is the type of coordination and groupthink which has generated the criticism of the Journolist.

Moira Whelan, a Huffington Post blogger and Director of Strategy at National Security Network, was most blunt about it (emphasis mine):

I dont think anyone from this list is running with it, but as I see it, the task is to set the frame that the Palin pick showed bad judgment on McCain’s part. That way when/if it does pop, it gets into that meme without people having to express outrage.

If you really want to know what they were afraid of, Kathleen Geier of Talking Points Meme summed it up:

I am really hoping Palin will self-immolate and bring down the ticket with her.

Because if she proves to be a popular choice who doesn’t screw up too badly, she
could be really, really dangerous in the years to come.

The emerging picture of the Journolist is that it served as a place where like-minded people who had great influence on how the media portrayed events were able to coordinate their story lines for the benefit of the Obama campaign.

We saw the media bias on the surface; the Journolistas helped frame that bias below the surface.

Update: Moe Lane points out that many of the e-mails centered on trying to analyze photos of Sarah Palin for signs of pregnancy, and bizarre speculation as to Sarah's possible motives to lie.

Andrew Sullivan takes pleasure in the fact that the Journlistas engaged in the same speculation he did, even though they criticized him for it publicly:

Well, we now know, that, for some at least, I wasn't crazy. I was just not disciplined enough to curtail what this blog airs in order to conform with what many Journo-listers believed were the interests of the Obama campaign. Any delusions that Journo-List was not, in part, a collusory venture to shape the media narrative in ways to benefit Obama, above and beyond ferreting out the truth about any and all candidates, must now be abandoned. Ezra Klein has already been caught in a bald-faced lie about his discretion in picking members; and the notion that this was simply a water-cooler collection of journalistic thoughts is also belied by the emails now published by the Daily Caller.

--------------------------------------------
Related Posts:
Psst...Don't Tell Andrew Sullivan Our Secret
Wonkette Goes After Trig Palin Again
Are Anti-Palin Intellectuals Anti-Intelligence?

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Here is my first Tweet, based on the disclosure at Slate (via Instapundit) of the liberal JournoList's vicious and repeated attacks on the Jew Marty Peretz, which means (using the logic of the Ezra Klein in his vicious smear of Ann Althouse):


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UPDATE: Here is Ezra Klein's e-mail revealed in Slate trying to make sure all the JournoList communications were kept secret:

See these related posts: Liberal Ugliness Revealed On The JournoList; The JournoList Should Be Called The PlagiarList, Release ALL The E-Mails, Ezra, Ezra Klein Smears Ann Althouse.

Ezra Klein, blogger for the "liberal" American Prospect, got caught by Politico coordinating his stories with other liberal bloggers and journalists. Exposed for being a journalistic fraud, Klein needed an enemy. He found Ann Althouse. Althouse, who has a very popular blog, could be considered "conservative" (as in, when a law professor doesn't kneel at the alter of Obama, she is a "conservative").

Althouse's crime? She linked to the Politico story in a post at 8:54 a.m. on March 19, 2009 under the title "The Journolist." Althouse's blog gets tons of comments, unlike mine, which only gets a lot of comments when there is an Instalanche. Apparently, some of the comments were hostile to Klein, so Klein decided to take out Althouse by smearing her as an anti-Semite.

No, Klein didn't say that "Ann Althouse is an anti-Semite." The obvious weasel that he is, Klein did it indirectly under a post at 1:50 p.m. on March 20, 2009, titled "Are Ann Althouse's Commenters Anti-Semites?" Klein did a simultaneous Tweet with the same title. [Correction 3/21, 3:50 p.m.: The sequence was Klein tweets, Althouse objects, Klein posts the full post.]

This is how the left does it. When you can't find racist/sexist/anti-Semitic/homophobic comments by a conservative, you impugn their reputation by finding some lunatic in a crowd (or in blog comments) who did make such a comment.

Remember the hoax that someone at a McCain rally supposedly shouted "Kill Obama"? The left-wing smear machine (read, mainstream media) seized on that apparently fictitious comment to smear John McCain supporters as violent racists. The claim turned out not to be true, but no matter, the race card had been played (as it was throughout the Obama campaign).

Now Klein plays the "anti-Semite" card against Althouse by using anonymous blog comments against her. Who placed the anti-Semitic blog comments? Was it Klein himself acting under a pseudonym? I have no evidence of that, but how about if I ran a post titled "Did Ezra Klein post anti-Semitic comments to set up Ann Althouse?"

Klein, who is internet savvy, knew what his headline would do. Do a search for Ann Althouse on Google now, and you turn up blog posts concerning the anti-semitism. Forget her scholarship, teaching, popular blog. No, Klein has succeeded in making the discussion about Althouse about anti-semitism.

Althouse has demanded an apology, which Klein used as an excuse for more attacks on Althouse. This is the dilemma people face when dealing with people like Klein. Perpetuate the back-and-forth, and you have guaranteed an even greater chain of Google links.

Klein's attack on Althouse was grossly unfair. One of the problems with allowing open commentary on a blog and not screening for content is that one opens oneself up to these sort of attacks. Maybe the comments at issue were real, maybe they were not. But that is beside the point. The point is that Ezra Klein dug deep into his smear-merchant bag of tricks by going after Althouse in this way.

Great job Ezra. I hope that you coordinated your attack with your fellow Journolistas.
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UPDATE: I think I missed a point here. Not only did Klein smear Althouse, he did so by misrepresenting the nature of the "anti-Semitic" comments. Were the comments cited by Klein really anti-Semitic, or Jewish commenters' attempts at humor?

The comment by the anonymous "Jdeeripper" cited by Klein lists names of Jewish members of Klein's Journolist, with the comment that the Journolist: "Looks like more of a White Jewish male liberal conspiracy to me.... Gotta love the Jewish ethnocentrism and liberal 'progressive' self deception among so called liberals. Not big fans of 'diversity' when applied to themselves." Nothing anti-Semitic so far. A sad, but true, commentary on the liberal establishment.

The give-away that "Jdeeripper" probably is Jewish is this line: "There were two women in the article, Eve Fairbanks and Lisa Lerer. Two male goyim Mike Allen, Ben Smith and one other Jewish male who is not a conservative Michael Goldfarb." The term "goyim" is a term used by Jews to refer to non-Jews. Now that isn't proof of the writer's religion since the term is widely known, but it does suggest to me that this is not an anti-Semitic post, but an attempt to point out the hypocrisy of the left-wing establishment which holds up one diversity standard for the rest of the world, while not honoring the standard themselves.

Sarcasm, yes. Anti-Semitism, no.

The other comment cited by Klein has to do with a series of comments by apparently Jewish commenter "Maxine Weiss" regarding Klein's heritage in California and his appearance. Here's part of Weiss' offending string of comments:

Wouldn't it be absolutely hysterical if an unusually dark-skinned Abel Klein was originally Abel Gomez etc... And simply changed his name converted to Judiaism, and got the very white, off-beat, and full-lipped Jacqueline to marry him. It certainly would explain a few things. As I say, I'm probably wrong though.

Again, nothing overtly anti-Semitic; looks more like a tongue-in-cheek mocking of Klein (who can mock, but can't take being mocked). Weiss has a blog, and while it's not clear if that is her real name, she's hardly fully anonymous. Weiss' attempt at humor may fall flat, but it clearly was an attempt at humor.

So Klein really has pulled off a coup here. The thin-skinned Klein, who can dish it out but can't take it, took comments mocking him by anonymous apparently Jewish commenters, twisted them into false accusations of anti-Semitism, then used them to smear Ann Althouse.

What a sleaze. But then again, Klein is the head Journolista.
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UPDATE No. 2: Here's what others are saying:

Shreveport - "Klein has effectively smeared Althouse by his twisting of the issue. At the very least he should be exposed for the juvenile "journalistic" tactics he has used. As bloggers we are all subject to this kind of snarky, smarmy smear tactic."

American Power - "Ann is usually pretty restrained regarding flame wars, but I LOVE IT when she call these folks out."

Typical Klein Commenter - "I wouldn't apologize to Ann Althouse if I accidently ran her over, but only because I'd be afraid she'd find out my name. I'd high tail it out of there immediately." I guess that leads to the blog post title:

Are Ezra Klein's Commenters Road Rage Maniacs?

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UPDATE No. 3: Here's what someone who claims to be wise said about people who attack other people on the blogosphere instead of engaging in substantive debate (the names have been changed to reflect the current reality):

Eventually, inevitably, people like [Ezra Klein] get scared, or beat, or defensive, and they fall back on what's easiest: Trying to discredit, rather than debate. It's the first refuge of the scoundrel, and that's what [Klein] proved [him]self. [H]e's not only brought dishonor on h[is] own reputation, []he took what should've been a proud day for bloggers and the blogosphere and irreparably marred it for those involved, [Ann Althouse] in particular. [H]e sank low, hit hard, and smeared cruelly. That's not what this medium is supposed to be about. [Klein] should be ashamed.

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UPDATE No. 4: The always strong American Power has some more on this: Ezra Klein Does Not Deserve to Be Treated Fairly:

Klein's attack on Althouse is pure "faux" outrage. The guy was raised Jewish but has confessed his agnosticism, and he apparently "hates" anything having to do with organizes religion.

And Protein Wisdom chimes in:

It’s mourning in America, people. And Ezra Klein is tweeting his way to Vichy commander.

How proud his parents must be!

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See related Posts: Liberal Ugliness Revealed On The JournoList; The JournoList Should Be Called The PlagiarList, Release ALL The E-Mails, Ezra, My First Tweet: The JournoList Sure Has A Lot Of Anti-Semitic Commenters,

Lowest bar ever set for hero-dom (is that a word?).

Jonathan Strong, writing about the Heroes of the Journolist:

The Daily Caller has highlighted some of Journolist’s worst moments — such as when liberal members of the media plotted to kill important stories about the presidential campaign.

But the 400-member listserv, like any community, was a complex arrangement comprised of many individual voices.

While some urged members to level indiscriminate charges of racism, other postings reflected admirable integrity or civility.

Such as?

HuffPo editor and reporter Dan Froomkin arguing that news should be reported even if it hurt Barack Obama; James Surowiecki of The New Yorker arguing that facts about the Fort Hood shooter should be reported accurately; Ezra Klein, founder of the Journolist, not letting people explicitly coordinate stories on the Journolist (which is what they did implicitly anyway); and Jeffrey Toobin of various mainstream outlets displayed a "commendably open mind and a sense of civility."

Here we go, now I will qualify as a hero as well:

"I will try to understand your point of view. Have a nice day. Are you going to live blog O on The View?"

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Nate Silver, soon to be blogging at The New York Times, is not waiting for The Daily Caller to expose more e-mails from the Journolist, in which Silver participated.

So Silver is taking preemptive action to explain his involvement (emphasis mine):

I made on the order of 150 posts to Journolist while I was member of the list-serv, most of which were on the short side. I rarely write long posts on discussion lists -- and for that matter I rarely write long e-mails – because I figure if I have something coherent and substantive to say it should probably go on my blog. Most of the posts were banal. They might involve things like: asking for advice on book-writing, seeing if anyone had contact information for a person I was trying to reach for a story, or clarifying a point of Senate procedure. Other posts involved "off-topic" threads on subjects like food or sports.

A lot of the other comments involved discussions of Democratic or Republican political strategy. Almost always, I made exactly the points in these discussions that I made on FiveThirtyEight. Sometimes, I used the phrasing "we" when participating in these discussions, which I would not ordinarily use on the blog. I’ve disclosed from the first day of FiveThirtyEight’s existence that I’m usually a Democratic voter, and Journolist’s membership consisted of mostly Democrats, so this seemed fairly natural.

In general, I don’t do a lot of name-calling, even in private, and there was very little of that in my posts. I can be sarcastic and I certainly tweaked a few people here and there. But essentially without exception, they were people who I’ve also tweaked in public at FiveThirtyEight.

Sound like there are some soundbites in Nate's e-mails, and he wants to get ahead of the curve.

Silver makes two disclosures which go to the integrity of his core blogging business, public opinion polling analysis. For someone who presents himself as providing objective statistical analysis (even if his liberal politics were well known), soundbites from emails could be particularly damaging.

Read the linked post for Silver's lengthy explanations. Let's just say, he seems awfully defensive and perhaps protests too much.

Can't say I blame Silver for wanting to get ahead of the next post at The Daily Caller. It's what any good politician would do.

Update: Thanks to a reader for alerting me to the Ben Smith's (Politico) preemptive confession (emphasis mine):

A handful of POLITICO reporters, myself included, were members of the now-defunct listserv, which has been portrayed at times as a kind of cabal aimed at, among other goals, doing physical harm to Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh and
destroying Fox News....

The list was free of the sort of effective coordination some critics allege, and many of its participants disagreed with one another bitterly, while others on the list mostly lurked silently. I can’t recall any substantive difference between what people wrote privately and publicly. Like many private e-mail conversations, it had no shortage of stray inflammatory and ill-advised comments, and many, many more mundane ones.

I’d add only one thing: I never found out any good secrets on Journolist. It wasn’t that kind of list. But to get the flavor of it, you can read conversation that mirrors it on Twitter. That platform — although it’s in principle open and democratic — in fact reflects more or less the same virtues of hashing out ideas and the dangers of the herd mentality.

No coordination, and just like Twitter? Great, so release all the emails.

Update 7-23-2010: Add Greg Sargent of The Washington Post, who regularly attacks Sharron Angle, to the list:

At risk of getting drawn into this debate, I was a member of J-List for some time, but never when I was writing for The Post. I'd originally signed up as a member when I was at TPM, and remained one after The Washington Post Company hired me to write for WhoRunsGov. But I almost never participated -- I was a lurker -- and I removed myself from the list well before my blog was moved over to The Post proper, mainly because I was sick of being overwhelmed by emails.

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Chuck Todd, of NBC, whose nomme de guerre is "Chuckie T.," has lost sleep over the Journolist, as quoted by Roger Simon at Politico in a column, Journolist veers out of bounds:

“Journolist was pretty offensive. Those of us who are mainstream journalists got mixed in with journalists with an agenda. Those folks who thought they were improving journalism are destroying the credibility of journalism.

“This has kept me up nights. I try to be fair. It’s very depressing.”

Welcome to the world of the sleepless, Chuckie.

Conservatives lose much more sleep as a result of blatant bias and pro-Obama electioneering by people at your network, than you ever will over the Journolistas.

What troubles you about the Journolistas, troubles us about NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the rest of the mainstream media.

At least the Journolistas recognized that they had an agenda. Which means they have taken the first step.

Are you ready to take that first step, as well?

Update: Chuckie T. is still in denial, as he related to Journolista Greg Sargent (oh, the irony):

"I understand what the purpose of the list was," Todd told me. "A minority of folks created a perception problem for the list. And there's clearly a campaign by some conservatives to use this."

The problem, Todd added, is that J-List created a "perception that the right's claim of a so-called liberal media conspiracy is true, which is not the case."

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"I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first 400 names in the Boston telephone directory, than in a society governed by the 400 members of the Journolist."

From iOwnTheWorld (click for ever increasing and updated photo montage)(via Instapundit):



[Note to readers, this is just part of the montage at iOwnTheWorld; since their photo keeps changing, my links to it go bad, so I've just posted a snapshot.]

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The Journolistas' New Day Now Seems So Far Away and Long Ago
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Matthew Yglesias, who blogs at Think Progress, July 21, The Shame of the Daily Caller:

The Caller appears to have access to a very large proportion of JournoList emails and they can’t come up with anything that withstands cursory scrutiny.

The Daily Caller, July 22:

Blogger Matt Yglesias sent out a new post thread with the subject, “The line on Palin.”

“John McCain picked someone to help him politically, Barack Obama picked someone to help him govern” ...

Oh, that email.

Matthew Yglesias, more from July 21:

Nor are they willing to simply publish the full text of the pilfered emails they’re writing about, forcing their audience to instead rely on Jonathan Strong’s deliberately misleading writeups.

Put your emails where your mouth is.

No one is stopping you from releasing the full archive of emails, so that the people can reach their own unfiltered conclusions.

Update: More at HillBuzz

Update July 23, 2010: At least Andrew Sullivan is not running from the significance of the Yglesias email:

Ezra Klein's attempt to pass off JournoList as just a water-cooler confab seems pretty much exploded by this latest Daily Caller piece. I mean: what is the point of putting out an email with the subject line "The Line On Palin" if there isn't an actual line? And what is this if not organizing a media narrative .... Look: you know how appalled I was by the Palin pick, but on this issue, I have to side with the JournoList critics. If this was not an organized media campaign in the service of a political candidate, what would be?

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Journolistas Even Clam Up In Unison
It Begins: Journolistas Start Preemptive Confessions
Enlighten Us, Ezra, Release All The Emails

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News is just breaking that Attorney General Eric Holder is withdrawing the indictment of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens based on severe prosecutorial misconduct. The Politico reports, via NPR, that Holder will instruct deputies to withdraw the indictment against the Alaska Republican today, effectively voiding the conviction that cost Stevens his job:

Holder is said to have decided late Tuesday to pull the plug. Stevens lawyers are expected to be informed Wednesday morning that the department will dismiss the indictment against the former senator.Holder's decision is said to be based on Stevens age, he's 84; and because Stevens is no longer in the Senate. Perhaps most importantly, Justice Department officials say Holder wants to send a message to prosecutors throughout the department that actions he regards as misconduct will not be tolerated.Holder began his career in the office of public integrity; and according to sources, he was horrified by the failure of prosecutors to turnover all relevant materials to the defense.

Stevens lost his bid for re-election to Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, by 3,724 votes out of more than 315,000 cast. Begich is a big supporter of Obama's stimulus bill and big government spending. Without the Begich vote, Obama would have a much more difficult time passing his agenda.

This is what happens with politically motivated prosecutions. While Stevens may or may not have committed a crime, he was deprived of a fair trial by prosecutors who knowingly and in defiance of court orders withheld relevant documents and information in order to secure a conviction of a high-profile Senator. The result was not just a wrongful conviction, but a change in the overall structure of our political process which will have implications for decades if Begich becomes the deciding vote on Obama's agenda.

I give credit to Holder for the decision. Shame on the prosecutors who perverted justice.

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Afterthought: The JournoListas probably will find a way to blame Bush: Liberal Ugliness Revealed On The JournoList, The JournoList Should Be Called The PlagiarList, Release ALL The E-Mails, Ezra, My First Tweet: The JournoList Sure Has A Lot Of Anti-Semitic Commenters, Ezra Klein Smears Ann Althouse.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin and others in Alaska are calling on Begich to resign and stand in a special election. Good idea, but isn't going to happen. Begich was handed a gift by the Justice Department, and he isn't going to give that gift back.
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I'll admit it, I was wrong about The Daily Caller when I called it a failure several months ago.

In the past months The Daily Caller has done a good job on a variety of issues, particularly exposing the Journolist, a group of liberal mainstream media reporters and bloggers.

We all knew the mainstream media to be in cahoots with the Democratic Party, and the liberal blogosphere even more so.

But the e-mails obtained by The Daily Caller reveal an even more sordid conspiracy.

In 2008, the Journolist was intimately involved in trying to squelch the Reverend Wright controversy by smearing opponents of Barack Obama as racist:

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists." ...

[quoting Ackerman's e-mail, the article continues]

I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

Towards the end of the 2008 election, I wrote:

But the race card has worked again. McCain is afraid to attack the Wright/Obama connection for fear of being called racist.

It is the stifling of legitimate debate which is fueling anger throughout the country. We are on the verge of electing a president who built his political career on the backs of race-baiters and anti-american zealots, and we can't talk about it out of fear of being called "racist."

The suppression of legitimate political expression through false accusations of racism by the Obama campaign and its supporters is the defining theme of the 2008 campaign. This tactic, while it may be successful, is shameful and has damaged our society in ways we may not understand for years.

The story is not just that liberal journalists are a bunch of conspiring liars and frauds.

The real story is that liberal journalists manipulated the 2008 election by actively campaigning in secret for Barack Obama, and stifling debate on critical issues by smearing opponents as racist.

This is no joke. We now are paying the price, both in the destruction of our economy and standing in the world, and the continued race-card playing antics of groups like Think Progress and the NAACP. The race card tactic was so successful in 2008, that it is being tried again and again.

Don't get mad, get even ... at the polls. Remember November.

Update: Another must read, Thomas Sowell, Race Card Fraud

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Am I the only one to see the multiple levels of irony in this?

• Ezra Klein, current employee of The Washington Post:

  "I actually expect this to be my final public comment on the subject."

• Nate Silver, future employee of The New York Times:

  "p.s. This is pretty much my final 'say' on this topic, so please don't anticipate any follow-up, or any response to media requests, etc.

Well, that clears that up.

Update 7-23-2010: Some of the readers were correct, Ezra took the bait:

I hoped to let my quick accounting of the constant inaccuracies in the Daily Caller's selective quotations from Journolist stand as my last word on the matter. But Tucker Carlson's sanctimonious and evasive statement on the way his site has been covering this story deserves a response. So allow me one more post.

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Liberal Ugliness Revealed On The JournoList
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Chris Muir takes note:


Worry not, Dear Journolistas,

You still have your youthful snark, irrelevant wit, what the f@#k kick ass attitudes, and epistemic closures;

and you still can suckle at the informational bosom of Mother Media Matters, and call it journalism.

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My One Question for WaPo Regarding The Journolist
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