Spent the Evening With My Buddy, Glenn

Speaking of Glenn Greenwald, I met him tonight.  His new book, Great American Hypocrites, was released yesterday and he had his first book signing at a bookstore in downtown DC.  It was a standing room only crowd and the bookstore quickly sold out of his book.  I manged to buy a copy and even got a front row seat.

Glenn stood and talked about his book for about a half hour and then took questions.  The questions were unusually concise and Glenn's answers were spot on.  One guy noted that liberal Keith Olbermann has by far the best ratings on MSNBC, so why doesn't MSNBC, whose sole purpose is to make a profit, find more Olbermanns and make a killing.  Glenn said that was a good question. When they let Tucker Carlson go they could have filled that spot with the very popular Rachel Maddow, but chose David Gregory instead.

Another question touched on one of my concerns. He asked if Glenn ever worried that if we (liberals) are too successful we could turn into pompous bullies like the Republicans are today.  Glenn said he has thought about that and prefers to cross that bridge if it happens.  (My concern is, would we recognize that we have become pompous bullies?).

A questioner asked about Glenn's relationship with some of the reporters he's criticized in the past.  Glenn mentioned that he has found MSM reporters to be very thin skinned on the whole.  However, he believes that when criticized and respectfully rebuked by his readers the reporters often improve a bit.

Someone asked Glenn why he rarely appears on political TV shows given his popularity.  Glenn listed several reasons why, but the one I liked best was his comment that these are people and programs he frequently criticizes and he doesn't want to get too close to them for fear of losing his objectivity.

One questioner asked what the average concerned citizen can do to affect change, given the sorry state of our media and the general cowardice of the Democratic party.  This was Glenn's most interesting answer.  He started by telling us about his column that dealt with the startling claims Attorney General Michael Mukasey made in his San Francisco speech.  When Glenn tried to get former Congressman Lee Hamilton, who was co-chair of the Iraq study group, to comment on Mukasey's claims, Hamilton blew him off completely!  When Glenn asked his readers to politely contact Hamilton and ask him to respond to Glenn's questions, Hamilton was deluged with emails and soon contacted Glenn and gave him a comment.  Glenn said this is evidence of just how influential liberal blogs are becoming.

Then Glenn mentioned the (off the record) meeting he just had with 20 or so Democratic Congressmen and political advisers.  He said some of these Congressmen were Blue Dog Dems who frequently support George Bush, and yet Glenn said they were very interested in working more closely with liberal bloggers.  Glenn said they stayed on and asked a lot of probing questions (at least this is the sense I got).  The bottom line is, the Democrats are warming to the liberal bloggers and are beginning to see the benefits of working with us.

Here's my take.  When the liberal blogs rallied around Ned Lamont to beat Joe Lieberman in the CT primary, the politicians  thought (hoped) it was a fluke.  But they are now seeing how effective the liberal blogs have been in blocking amnesty for the telecoms and the thrashing we helped give Albert Wynn by our support of Donna Edwards, and they are beginning to realize we can help them win more fights if they work with us.

Glenn will be at the University of Maryland tomorrow night.  I was planning to go to the cabin tomorrow, but tonight was so invigorating, I may postpone it another day and attend.

One last note.  As I was standing in line to get my book signed, the young man in front of me asked me how long I had been reading Glenn's blog.  I admitted I didn't really know, it seemed like I've read him forever.  We talked a bit and I found out he was once President of his chapter of the College Republicans.  He told me that the war and then the torture issue forced him to look closer at the Republican Party and he finally switched sides.  That really made my day!

Book TV on C-Span taped Glenn's talk tonight.  The cameraman said it will probably be scheduled about two weeks from now.  After it runs, it will be available for on-line viewing.  It's well worth watching.

UPDATE: I appreciate Glenn linking to my review of his book signing.  Welcome.  Pardon the mess, I'm not used to this much company.

I attended Glenn's talk at the Univ of Maryland on Thursday and again was impressed with the questions asked and Glenn's responses.

If you get a chance to attend one of his book signings, don't hesitate to go.  The two here in DC were low key, and Glenn is very approachable. He spent a lot of time after the events talking to anyone who approached him.

[disclaimer: When I originally posted this I had about 8 readers a day and was being flip with the subject line, but since then this post has been viewed by many who aren't aware of my humor, so that being said, Glenn doesn't know me from Adam, but I love his blog and consider him my friend AND a friend of the Constitution]

--Trakker

Comments

[Oregon Pundit]

Hi Trakker,

I am on my way to work, so I don't have time for a long comment. Great post! Let me say, once in a blue moon I actually miss living in the D.C. area. Olsson's Books and Glenn Greenwald--it can't get any better than that.

I will check in later in the day. I have some thoughts about how the left-leaning blogs serve as an effective counterweight to the right-leaning mainstream media.

[Trakker]

Since retiring, I have begun to realize what a pleasure it is to live in DC. Probably any large city would do, but being a political junky, Washington is special in that respect.

[Oregon Pundit]

Old guys like me remember when things were different. The mainstream media WAS more liberal until the 1970s. There WAS a time when ultra-conservative politicians and pundits (members of the John Birch Society and the red-baiting Joe McCarthy types—not moderate Republicans) were ridiculed by the mainstream media. There WAS a time when intellectuals like Walter Lippmann, Edward R. Murrow, and Eric Sevareid would make pronouncements from Mt. Olympus, and other members of the media dutifully fell in line. Lippman, Murrow, and Sevareid represented an intellectual elite, an elitism that was grounded in the belief that liberalism of the FDR era worked for the greater good of all Americans. The idea that news was a commodity that must generate profits for investors and stockholders was foreign to them. It was a repugnant idea.

I think it is important to note the mainstream media has not always been conservative. The mainstream media could be a force for liberalism in the future, given the right circumstances. I would not rule it out. However, that scenario appears unlikely. What we have today is a near-perfect union between corporatism and conservative ideology. This union has had a long run, and looks like it may continue for a few more years. The connection between corporations and the conservative movement looks pretty tight.

Here’s what I think. In the future, news will come from two generic groups: the corporate-driven mainstream media (the old profit-driven corporate media, plus the cable shout shows), and an equally important, equally powerful liberal news and opinion outlet spearheaded by the left-leaning bloggers. I see this sharp bifurcation occurring over the next 5-6 years. The end result will be an overall balancing out of news coverage and opinion. The bloggers will be a throwback to the Lippmanns, Murrows and Sevareids who valued critical thinking. The conservative corporate media will continue to make money doing the same things they do now. In the end, consumers of the news will have a full range of choices.

But here is the kicker. By and large, conservatives prefer to seal themselves off from the reality-based universe (see Iraq, Reaganomics). Left-leaning bloggers embrace reality. Future consumers of the news will notice the difference. When it comes to policy, I see the corporate media losing influence, and the bloggers gaining influence. Simply because one side knows what it is talking about and the other side is full of it.

[Trakker]

I think you're right. I see bloggers taking over as the source of reality-based commentary and interpretation of the news in the future.

I am also heartened by the reaction of the viewers to last night's ABC debacle where their two questioners pretty much followed the RW script and asked no substantive questions for the first 45 minutes. I heard complaints immediately started pouring in. Maybe the public will do their part to push the MSM back toward the center.

[Russell Pape]

First time at your site, but I'll be back. Thanks for your review of Glenn's book signing and relating the encouraging things that took place.
I'm a WWII boomer, and for such a long time so many of my generation didn't know where to go to feel like we could make a difference...or even to complain and be heard. The internet has changed all of that. I don't always send those emails, letters or make those calls that are suggested by the blogs that I read, but I do send some. That's more than I was doing before and it is directly related to finding these voices out there...such as yours. When I think back over the past 4 or 5 years, I realize that I am plugged into a connection that did not exist in the past. Glenn and others have become a part of my daily life.
I believe that there are many, many people who are willing to sacrifice for the cause but not many of us are strong enough to push forward when we are alone, so it is such a relief to feel as though that there may still be a reason to hold onto that old patriotic belief that the United States has been in the past, and can be in the future, the place that many of us can feel proud to call home. We have quite a ways to go, but with those of you who have had the tenacity and courage to push forward, I believe that the best is yet to come.
rjp

[E.M.]

Thanks for the review of the book signing.

I agree that the blogs will continue to gain in importance both in providing analysis of the news provided by the MSM as well as being an alternative source for hard news. At the same time, blogs will continue to gain in importance as an effective and efficient tool to organize and motivate citizen activists to, for example, contact Lee Hamilton, defeat Lieberman in the Conn. primary or file grievances against the attorneys who have enabled this administration's law breaking, such as Alberto Gonzales and Harriet E. Miers.

[Trakker]

Russell, I'm a WWII boomer too. I grew up very conservative but the Vietnam War and the civil rights fight convinced me that the right is batty and often mean-spirited. Like many of my (our) generation I became complacent. By the time I started to pay attention again the right had already gleefully burrowed into Congress, governments at all levels, and the media. We've got a big fight ahead of us but with bloggers like Glenn, and concerned, disgusted, energized citizens like you and me and all the commenters and lurkers on the lefty blogs, we're beginning to make some pretty solid progress, in fact we may end up with an even better government than we had in 2000.

E.M. You're right. I called a lot of Senator's offices about their FISA vote a few months ago and got the distinct impression they were being swamped with calls about FISA - and they didn't like it. Good! We may not have the $$$ but we've got noise, and they are catching on that noise can kick them out of their plush offices and off C-Span. When Mikulski's aid put me on hold for over an hour to shut me up I knew I had won a small victory.

[HPM]

Great review. Thanks.