Decision ‘08

Gilliard-Gate: The New Stephen Glass Responds

Okay, Glenn Greenwald (wow, how did I spend so much of my weekend blogging about him?) was right; Steve Gilliard did not compose the third email quoted by Jason Zengerle in his expose of the ‘Townhouse’ request by Kos to keep mum on Jerome Armstrong’s troubles with the SEC (if you’re completely confused, refreshers are here and here):

Steve Gilliard claims that he did not write the email I attributed to him in this post. After doing some further investigating, I’m afraid to say that he is correct. He did not write that email. I apologize to Gilliard for not checking with him before publishing my post, and I regret the error.

Glenn can justly crow that he was right, and I won’t begrudge him that (well, somewhat - his accusation was that Zengerle fabricated the thing out of whole cloth - my, that does sound like a quick judgement on someone’s integrity, and there’s been more than a bit of that coming from Glenn today); I certainly more than implied that I thought the whole thing was a bit of a dubious dodge, and I still agree with Zengerle’s point here about the larger context:

I believe that this error is of a relatively minor nature–I did not, as Matt Stoller has maliciously alleged, “fabricate” anything–but any error is of course unacceptable. I sincerely regret not checking with Gilliard before quoting his purported words, not only because this was unfair to Gilliard–who has behaved more responsibly than anyone involved in this particular matter, myself included–but because the mistake that resulted from this failure has allowed Greenwald and others to try to use this minor error to distract people from much larger issues. Those issues are: Armstrong’s troubles with the SEC; Armstrong’s relationship with Moulitsas and Moulitsas’s pattern of supporting politicians who hire Armstrong as a consultant; Moulitsas’s attempts to silence liberal bloggers from commenting on these matters; the seeming acquiescence of so many of these liberal bloggers (including Greenwald) to Moulitsas’s demands; and now, strangely, stuff like this.

Nevertheless, Glenn took umbrage earlier in perceiving I insulted his integrity, and I’ll state again that I don’t think Glenn is a liar or in Markos’s pocket (indeed, he was shown to be (partially - again, the fabrication bit was an overreach) right on this matter), but I do think he is hitching his wagon on the wrong side of this story (and I still say it’s hard to criticize those who have been good to you, and Kos has been good to Glenn - it’s human nature, not an accusation of dishonesty).

As Zengerle says, this is about bigger issues that eclipse the email. A mistake was made, and a correction issued, and no doubt Zengerle will take a pasting, but we still await word of what Glenn, who is rightly concerned about his own integrity (and quick to dismiss my own), thinks about the integrity of Jerome Armstrong…

UPDATE 11:08 a.m.: Greenwald responds at length here (not to me, to the events of the weekend)…

6 Responses to “Gilliard-Gate: The New Stephen Glass Responds”

1 Anonymous Liberal Says:
June 25th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Glenn can justly crow that he was right, and I won’t begrudge him that (well, somewhat - his accusation was that Zengerle fabricated the thing out of whole cloth

Mark, just to clear the record, Glenn never accused Zengerle of fabricating the email. Reread his original post if you don’t believe me. Yes, he suggested that the email was fabricated, but not by Zengerle. He suggested that Zengerle passed off a fake email without adequately authenticating it. That’s apparently exactly what happened.
2 Mark Says:
June 26th, 2006 at 5:48 am
Thanks for the clarification…I’ll reread his post…
3 Mark Says:
June 26th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Well, Anonymous, I just reread it, and he suggested a lot more than that. I quote:

Zengerle owes his readers and The New Republic an explanation, and soon. Did Zengerle really have three sources for these e-mails (as he claimed), or did he simply receive things from an anonymous source and then blindly rely on the veracity of what he was sent, only to claim that it was from “three sources” in order (a la Jason Leopold) to enhance the credibility of his claims? Or, a la Stephen Glass, did Zengerle simply fabricate e-mails in order to bolster his “story”?

It is one thing for a journalist to make a mistake; like everyone, they all do that at some point. But to expressly lie about your sources in order to make your assertions seem more substantial is as serious a journalistic breach as can be committed. Is this what Zengerle did?

In any event, Glenn got what he wanted, I would think; Zengerle apologized for not properly sourcing the email…hardly the journalistic mortal sin that Glenn claims, but nevertheless…
4 Anonymous Liberal Says:
June 26th, 2006 at 7:52 am
But, Mark, Glenn listed a string of possible explanations, only the last of which was that Zengerle fabricated the email out of whole cloth. It’s clear from his post that he didn’t think that was the most likely explanation. So it’s unfair to claim that he accused Zengerle of making it up.

When you list all the logical possibilities, including the most sensational one, that’s not at all the same thing as endorsing the most sensational possibility.

And the “lie” that Glenn was referring to was Zengerle’s attribution of the email to three sources, not his making the email up.
5 Mark Says:
June 26th, 2006 at 7:58 am
Well, the headline referred to Zengerle as the new Stephen Glass, suggesting a closeness to the third position…
6 Dennis Says:
June 26th, 2006 at 9:59 am
Exactly, Mark. It’s more than a little cute to claim that Glenn was just listing a string of explanations when he slaps the name of a well-known fabricator in the headline.

That doesn’t even take into account the furious spinning over one short e-mail purported to be from Gilliard, one whose sentiments Gilliard acknowledged having, and one whose sentiments were identical to the sentiments Glenn expressed himself in his own much longer e-mail, which he has acknowledged is accurate - namely, that ignoring the story in the hopes it would go away probably wouldn’t work.

When you add to that the fact that Glenn can hyperventilate to Mark about his integrity, while at the same time casually calling this TNR writer a “new Stephen Glass,” and railing about one-party rule and previously saying that those who support the president simply can’t be doing so in good faith, I’m left thinking Mark’s main failing is in being too considerate of a guy who has shown no compunction about throwing elbows and then screaming “Foul!” when someone brushes against him.

And of course, none of this gets into the real heart of the story, namely that Kos, the champion of the people-power movement, has a long habit of supporting whoever pays his buddy. Even without the pump-and-dump stock fraud, that would still be disturbing, or at least it should be, to the true believers that Kos claims to support. I can’t help but think that if people have discovered starving this story of oxygen is not an option, misdirecting the hell out of it clearly is.