Please try to look at how many comments I did respond to, yours included. Then remember that most contribs don’t have the time to reply to comments at all.

@ Evan

We’ll have to agree to disagree. But it is nice to see you feeling more chirpy.

Oh, and it’s Monday morning here, by the way. Not much to enjoy.

Now, seriously. Cmon. How could you spend time responding to me be telling me to be civil and calm down? You have no idea what my temperament is. I think you have written the words ‘reflexive’ and ‘knee-jerk’ around two dozen times each. And plus, I have never seen a poster respond so much to people in the comment section. Don’t you have something to do? A job perhaps?

I love how you change the justification for your piece over and over. In response to me, you wrote this:

“As for your ‘argument’, need I really go to the effort of pointing out that my article is underlining the shortcomings in the knowledge and experience of netroots in deciding presidential appointments?”

First, I love how the word argument is in quotes, just to remind me how you are better than me and I have no real standing here (which is your main point about all people not within the intelligence community, I gather). Second, I do you think you needed to give us some effort to explain the main point of your very rant-ish piece. I had many questions when I was done reading. Do you support Brennan for CIA director, even though he took his name out of the running? Should we close Guantanamo? Do you believe torture to be effective? Or should no person who you don’t deem qualified speak on any subject ever?

Somewhere in this comment section you wrote this:

“These reflexive attempts to accuse me of suppressing dissent totally miss the point. My complaint was about undue, unmerited influence from a source that lacked both restraint and experience.”

Now, it may just be me, but that is a little disingenuous. If you don’t want to suppress dissent, then how can you write a whole piece about how you think people influencing politics away from your preferred ideological base position through attacks on credentials. And don’t deny that that’s your main point. You think Glenn has too much power on the ‘netroots’ while knowing too little. So you are not directly suppressing dissent, you are just putting forth an argument, a full, lengthy, emotional, fact-free argument, about how one person, specifically Glenn, should not have much influence because he doesn’t, according to you, really know shit.

I personally, disagree. I would never have questioned your credentials if you didn’t do it to Glenn first, and that is a main point here. You try to deny that bringing up your credentials is out of scope, when that remains the crux of your argument – Glenn doesn’t have the credentials. And as I said in my first post: Who are you?

Try not to go crazy with this Mac. Have a great Sunday.

Concession accepted.

Since you were gracious enough to publish my first comment, I haven’t felt any need to re-post any of my comments here since then.

Despite your snap-judgement characterization of me, I’m not one of Glenn Greenwald’s flunkies. And Salon isn’t the only website where I comment. I was saying the same things I’m saying now in regard to the Bush usurpations of power in the name of the Terror War- for years before I ever encountered his Unclaimed Territory blog, which I found before he linked it to Salon.

I make no apologies for being tremendously impressed by Mr. Greenwald’s articulate exposition of views on Constitutional protections, and his spot-on critique of the Bush administration, and his excoriations of the American mass media (if you’re looking for a proper place to employ the term “servile”, look no further than that cohort of overpaid stenographers.)

It’s been a welcome thing to find support for my impressions from others who aren’t simply unlettered laypersons like myself, but rather legal professionals with expertise in Constitutional law. Other voices with similar backgrounds were few and far between, for a long while. I had heard many of the same observations by a couple of my fellow posters on other websites who were attorneys, but it was Glenn Greenwald who made it his personal mission to focus an ongoing chronicle of observations that rose to the level of historical documentation. And he from the outset, his frequently scathing critique was on-point, time and again. Go back and read those early columns. He wasn’t simply doing it as sensationalism to get netclicks for Salon, either. As I’ve noted, he wasn’t on Salon.com when his blog began.

The result was an end run past what amounted to a massmedia blockade during the first years of the Bush administration against hearing any such voices on the air, or given any more than cursory mention in the press. (You’ll search far and wide- and most likely in vain- to find even one on-air interview with the venerable civil libertarian Nat Hentoff on Bush’s attempts to roll back civil rights protections and institute an autocratic torture regime in it’s place, for instance.)

That’s what the Internet was meant to do. If “freedom of the press belongs to those who own one”, then the Internet has been a quantum leap. The empowerment of the ability of individuals to speak truth to power has increased to an unprecedented degree. Greenwald was one of those who has taken that ability and run with it.

I respect Glenn Greenwald enormously for doing that. But “servility” is out of the question. He doesn’t even know my actual name, unless he’s looked it up in the comment registry. And although apparently a few of the regular commentors on his blog are socially acquainted with each other, as yet I haven’t had any personal contact with any of them. Furthermore, because I’m (re)starting a couple of writing projects of my own, I’ll probably be doing less commenting there, not more. Although I’ll be around.

As for Greenwald’s lack of response to you, as yet- that’s up to him. But from the notice given in his blog, you seem to have caught him at a busy time. I wouldn’t give up trying, just yet.

It would be cute if it weren’t quite so servile.–MacConnell

You make strawman assumptions about people and then you snidely post your “ad hominems” at them based on your made up strawman assumptions. The irony of you pissing about – or, as you insist, remarking upon — an ad hominem has become increasingly absurd as your thread here continues along with one smart aleck remark after another posted by you.

I am still unable to comment at Salon, because of a technical error. I have registered, but whenever I attempt to comment on his story, I get this message on a blank screen:

——————-

This webpage has a redirect loop.

The webpage at http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/10/reyes/new/ has resulted in too many redirects. Clearing your cookies for this site may fix the problem. If not, it is possibly a server configuration issue and not a problem with your computer.

——————-

I have cleared my cookies several times. No change.

This aside, you seem to be snidely implying that my lack of comments on his page is evidence that I have no reply to his masterful denunciation of me.

Well, sorry to disappoint, but as soon as I realised I was unable to comment at Salon, I went with plan B and got a blog there:

http://open.salon.com/user_blog.php?uid=12975

My reply to Greenwald’s silly remarks have been there for three days now. Yet he still hasn’t replied. Do you think that means he’s unable to?

Now, hurry along and repost your ever-so-clever comment to Greenwald’s page. I may not be able to comment myself, but that hasn’t prevented me from reading his comments and observing the bizarrely sycophantic habit Greenwald’s readers (yourself included) have of making a comment in his defense elsewhere, then reposting it on his blog, in the vain hope that he will show you some favor.

It would be cute if it weren’t quite so servile.

Please don’t give up, just yet.

As I pointed out, previously, Glenn Greenwald is an attorney whose specialty is American Constitutional Law. You seem to think that doesn’t give him any added expertise in commenting on American Constitutional questions like whether pervasive surveillance measures, detention without trial, and brutal interrogation tactics are just and legal- evidently because you believe the authority of the American President and the American intelligence community is so sancrosanct that their decisions and actions can only be criticized by others members of that fraternity.

But that isn’t how the game works in this country.

At any rate, Mr. Greenwald has found remarkable support for his views from the ranks of the U.S. military and intelligence communities- and, as of yesterday, from the Executive Summary released by the bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee investigating those very matters.

That’s more expertise than you have brought to bear on the issue, Mr. MacConnell.

Peg C.: like it or not- vast though it is, there’s only one Internet. You can go through word games like “Please do not confuse the Netroots with rightwingers on the net”, but it doesn’t matter. This is the most enabling technology for an authentic “free market of ideas” ever, and the most level free speech playing field ever. And if the most effective thing the Right Wing can do with it in order to keep their views in play is to set up their own little gated communities to keep dissenters and uncomfortable facts out, they’re going to continue to get creamed in this arena. Steamrollered by Reality.

I do feel the need to give credit to M.P. MacConnell and Pajamas Media for allowing an actual debate to take place on this comments page. That’s a marked contrast to the usual run of websites with a pronounced rightward political slant that I’ve run across.

Remember- it’s easy to register at Salon, no charge.

Mr. MacConnell, I’ve read your post and your comments more closely than, I think, most people: your supporters as well as your critics.

Absent any real response or engagement from you other than repetition, I’ll have to concude that yes, you really do think that a 41-year-old libertarian blogger who spends half his time in Brazil is “the man whose opinion counts with President Elect Obama.” And furthermore, that you would rather criticize Glenn for writing than criticize Obama for basing his senior appointments on a couple of mildly-critical blog posts.

A lack of embarrassment is sort of an admirable quality; a lack of curiosity, not so much.

Point taken.

@ Kitt

I never complained about being a victim. I merely pointed out that your replies only consisted of personal attacks.

@ Jelperman

Be careful with the American-centric remarks. Your liberal pals might become upset with you.

@ Paul Daniel Ash

I would encourage you, if you are still having difficulties, to re-read my post and subsequent comments.

I reread the Greenwald and Sullivan posts that you linked here. Neither deals with “impropriety or illegality;” rather, both talk about exactly what the man said in various interviews and expresses disagreement with those opinions.

Sullivan concludes with “Appointing Brennan to the CIA does not mean change from Bush,” while the hystrical and unqualified Greenwald closes his piece with “His views on past administration conduct are, in many important instances, clearly disturbing and bear watching.”

Again, I’m really not sure what you’re suggesting these writers should have done. Even given your thesis that they are influential pundits with the awe-inspiring power to approve or deny Presidential appointments… should they then not give their honest opinions?

I mean, it’s not like Obama disn’t know that he was taking his cues for DCI from a couple of unqualified libertarian bloggers… right