Before we begin, let us pause for a moment to thank our Almighty for the small pleasures of life, such as almost a full week passing without having to suffer through yet another high cry and desperate whine from JournoList founder and Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, as he dishonestly complains about his online cabal of left-wing “journalists” being taken out of context by the Daily Caller’s damning and ongoing drip-drip-drip of an expose’.
JournoList founder Ezra Klein
Yes, thank you Ezra, for finally realizing that you were embarrassing yourself with these complaints as those of us watching this story wondered why you didn’t just go ahead and prove the Daily Caller a liar with a fully contextual response of your own, using that unique WaPo perch combined with the magic of the Internet and your very own personal copy of the full JournoList archives.
While I never took seriously my challenge to Mr. Klein to go right on ahead and clear up all his contextual concerns, he might want to consider doing so now. On June 29th, weeks before the Daily Caller announced the glorious fact that they were in possession of all or part of the JournoList archives, Klein wrote the following:
What if I told you I ran a secret e-mail list that connected progressive writers with staffers for Democratic politicians so that those staffers could tell the progressives what, exactly, their bosses wanted them writing about that day?
Sadly, I don’t run such a list.
You have to love that last sentence. The use of the word ”sadly” is soooo sly. Especially when it appears, that at times, that’s exactly the type of list Klein was running.
The context of his June 29th article is that after Klein’s WaPo colleague Dave Weigel was, uhm, resigned, from the Post after the Daily Caller and some other sites released transcripts of Weigel’s shockingly un-conservative JournoList emails, Klein was desperate to take the spotlight off his own personal online monster and so he played a game of LookOverHere! with a private RNC Listserv … as though he were blessed with the magic powers necessary to turn that orange into his rotten apple.
The context I’m most interested in, however, and the context his employers at the Washington Post should be most interested in, is Klein’s June 29th assertion that:
The rule for Journolist was that no one who worked for the government in any capacity could join or, if they took a job with the government, remain.
According to today’s Daily Caller article titled, “Political operatives on Journolist worked to shape news coverage,” that doesn’t appear to be completely true:
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 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.
Jason Furman, JournoList member
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.
If Klein ever plans to lay out that contextual case he was so eager to play the victim over, what I see as an obvious contradiction between what he published June 29th on the Washington Post website and what Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller has reported, appears to be the perfect opportunity.
And if Klein won’t do so of his own volition, his employers at the Washington Post might want to ask him to. Or is Klein’s explanation to the Daily Caller that, “It’s possible I missed someone,” good enough when one of their own uses their website to declare something that doesn’t appear to be true?
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76 Comments
Yes Ezra, why don't you release the full archive? If you've got nothing to hide this seems like an ideal opportunity to prove how the right is systemically taking things out of context to demonize the progressive press.
Not gonna hold my breath though, too much talking to do between now and November!
Yep, if Klein was taken "out of context," which is a favorite complaint of libs, then release the entire list. I'm not seeing the issue here.
Journalists coordinating their work with government agents for the purposes of furthering an endeavor where the members of the press who participated in the endeavor agreed to willingly and knowingly use the means of mass communications to disseminate false and misleading information by which they gained a material benefit.
Sounds like a textbook RICO case, wire fraud and conspiracy case to me.
I'll keep an eye out for the flying pigs and satan ice skating.
Politics corrupts. If these folks can't see that their ethics and morality have been compromised, pity them. In view
of this scandal, they appear shrunken, small, and pathetic. They would like to see themselves as bigshots and clever and as occupying the moral high ground. Instead they are pathetic, small, fearful. A dime a dozen. Dishonest. Cheap little syncophants. Butt kissers. We see you now ass-kissers. We know the truth about you, now.
Ezra & his pimply-faced adolescent pals are stuck at 13. On June 29 he says:
"What if I told you I ran a secret e-mail list that connected progressive writers with staffers for Democratic politicians so that those staffers could tell the progressives what, exactly, their bosses wanted them writing about that day?
Sadly, I don’t run such a list."
Notice the tense – "what if … I ran" to "I don't run such a list". Not – "I have never run such a list, and would never do so – that is clearly unethical".
We cannot hope that the Left will clean out its own filthy Augean stables of muck & corruption. The only solution is to kill the liberal media beast by starving it to death. That means boycotting WaPo, Salon, Politico, etc., and their advertisers. Don't buy print subscriptions and don't give them the web traffic. I don't go to Politico anymore – why bother? They lie about everything – I cannot trust anything they publish.
If they haven't had a change of heart by now, they never will.
HA! I just came through here to look around and everybody has been thumbed down !!! LOL That'll make the issue go away !!!!
Hey lefty trolls, before you go screamin about how there aren't any 'objective' journalists on the list, get this. There is no such thing as an objective journalist. Period. Maybe some try harder than others, but recently, nearly all journalist have slanted, spun, and outright lied, in order to give a favorable view of leftist agendas. This is called 'propaganda'. Your boys got caught. Tuff.
Dodge, deflect, distract, and whine, whine, whine.
If Klein believed what he's pushing, he would have released the archives. I was falsely accused of something very recently and promptly revealed relevant correspondence. Everything cleared up, problem solved.
Leftists can't do that because the more they reveal the more shocked normal people are by them.
"Now look what you've done – you're frozen EVERYTHING! Do you have any idea how long it takes to get the pilot lit??"
That's a misquote. What modern liberals really mean is being taken out of continence.
Actually I think you can skate on the 7th or 8th plane of hell, according to Dante. Ice can burn as much as fire.
I don't think so if they did not force any one to do anything against their will. Herding willing sheeple isn't against the law.
"What if I told you I ran a secret e-mail list that connected progressive writers with staffers for Democratic politicians so that those staffers could tell the progressives what, exactly, their bosses wanted them writing about that day?
Sadly, I don’t run such a list."
I had found a bank account my ex-husband was depositing to at the end of our marriage. I was in shock and disbelief and asked him if their was something he needed to tell me. He stood in front of me and said, "there are no secret bank accounts."
Sometimes narcissist tell you exacty how evil they are, they just don't think you'll believe them
*snort* I live in Alaska dammit! It's cold enough up here above the Arctic circle.
Really! I know. Some people are so inconsiderate:)
ITA. I think it just proves what a bunch of duchebags we have in the media.
One thing I have learned in my 30+ years of watching the Left in action is that if the Left accuses the right of doing something, you could bet your mortgage on the fact that the Left is not only doing the same thing, but doing it in spades. Doing so is a way for them to justify their own actions by telling themselves "those evil wingnuts are doing it, so we HAVE to do it too." Once they've gotten over the very low hurdle of convincing themselves of that, that opens the door to everything from "journalistic" conspiracy to outright voter fraud. In the end it is impossible to convince them that conservatives aren't doing the same thing because their entire self-image is founded on the concept that conservatives are evil, so they have to be evil to keep up, but THEY are being evil for the good of mankind, so that makes their evil acts morph in their own minds into noble sacrifices for the greater good.
This is why Leftists have been the core of virtually every evil regime in the last 150 years. They are willing to NOBLY SACRIFICE their principles in order to pursue their ideology.
They do this with eyes wide open too. And they congratulate each other for doing it. That's what JournoList truly reveals.
"Lord of the Lies"
They were all packing heat for team Obama and the MSM still does it. The MSM is still doing it for Obama. Nothing has changed. They're all "Children of the Progressive Corn" douche bags.
No, but actively printing false information for the purposes of furthering political ambitions without a declaration of support and a corresponding declaration of the value of the political contributions are both against the law. Using the Internet, television and newspapers to further the goals of said group for personal gain is both conspiracy and wire fraud. Those are also felonies. There's a difference in having a difference in opinion from forming a cabal for the purpose of intentionally disenfranchising the public in an election by which you personally profit. That's fraud.
Someone must have picked our country up and dropped it in Russia! This tactic is what the Communists used – disinformation. Makes you want to scream, and we get more bad news every day. I guess the good news is that it DOES get exposed Go Andrew and co.!
LOL Yeah, because I worry about being "thumbed down". AB has been put through hell and then we get news that a bunch of journalists (and I use that term VERY loosely) got together to conspire to help get Obama elected, But, ya know, I can hardly stand the hell of being "thumbed down". It's hilarious how upset the trolls get.
No one is objective.
Objective means there is an absolute, definitive, yes/no answer. People can not be objective, because we are subjective by nature. We can try.
And these are the kind of people who won't even try.
That's why I've always liked math, but the left seems to have a problem with numbers. Especially numbers with $$$$$$s attached. And votes too, it seems.
Someone once wrote that history is propaganda written by the victors. Napoleon said something similar, but the one I'm thinking about wasn't him. I'll try to find it.
This isn't the one I was thinking of, but it's a good one.
"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"
Samuel Adams
This one goes to the whole "The Constitution is a living document" BS.
I think Klein would fall back on the words "so that" as his sure refuge. He'd say that he didn't create the list so that Democratic operatives would tell journalists what the approved storyline is. Yes, the list has Democratic operatives as well as journalists; and yes, the operatives would pitch the approved storyline to journalists, who would be quite happy to pick it up;[*] but no, he'd say, that isn't why he created the list. Just something that happened along the way. Funny that!
[*] …or would criticize it only on tactical grounds–i.e. argue that the proposed storyline wouldn't work to help the Democrats, not that it's inappropriate for the operatives and journalists to be working together to slant the coverage.
Sounds like you know more about the law than I do, I'm know lawyer, so I'll defer.
Pimpocrats, one and all. Lets see how long they can maintain their shite-eating grins ("We're so kewl!!!") now that they've been outed.
You missed the best bit in that Daily Caller article:
"Journolist founder Ezra Klein, a staffer at the Washington Post, says he “tried to be very strict” in making sure no active political operatives joined Journolist. “It’s possible I missed someone,” he explained in an email.
In fact, he did. Jeff Hauser wrote scores of posts on Journolist during the time he was managing the New Jersey congressional campaign of Democrat Dennis Shulman. Hauser didn’t do much to hide his affiliation. Indeed, his posts on Journolist were signed, “Campaign Manager, Shulman for Congress,” followed by the campaign’s web address. After the election, Hauser took positions at a 527 group and a political action committee. He never left Journolist."
Oh, wait…. I'm probably taking this out of context.
"What if I told you I ran a secret e-mail list that connected progressive writers with staffers for Democratic politicians so that those staffers could tell the progressives what, exactly, their bosses wanted them writing about that day?
Sadly, I don’t run such a list."
This is almost Clintonian in its word parsage. Let's break it down: he doesn't currently run such an email list, he shut it down. And he's sad that he no longer runs such a list.
Progressives like this twerp have been brought up believing that they are smarter than everyone else. They think that they can play these word smith games with the public because he thinks we are all a bunch of idiots. And it is that arrogance that is killing them. That and an alternative media to tell the truth.
Thank you, Mr. Breitbart.
I don't think so, but you might make a case for a campaign finance law violation.
(Watch for flying pigs.)
That's why I prefer the way Yahoo counts the ups and downs.
We need to impanel a grand jury and find out, don't we?
BEWARE the GOVERNMENT / MEDIA COMPLEX………………Dr Micheal Savage………………
WAKE UP AMERICA ! ! !
Liberalism – the ' Religion of Lies'. .
What kind of chick dates a 'Journolist guy' and is this now superseding metrosexual? Seriously. Not trying to be mean but who could stand to live with the envy orgies these people conjure up.
Cue up Gene Wilder. Willy Wonka…..hit it.
Is there anything on the JournOList archives about who actually prepared (research and/or the actual writing) the NYT editorial that appeared November 25, 2007 entitled, "The High Cost of Health Care"?
Peter Orszag was writing similar stuff out of CBO at the time and he later ran the OMB transition team.
It is my understanding that he was a member of JournOList. Any policy recommendation coordination between CBO Orszag and NYT and then later Obama team OMB and NYT?
The real weasel word there is "exactly". Nobody told them EXACTLY what to write about. And yes, I'm sure Klein would be happy to do that. Typical journalist.
MyKu:
Ezra Klien…Ferris
Bueller's "special" cousin who
ate lots of paint chips.
I doubt if citizens can, and "flying pigs" refers to the gov't doing so. I have to wonder if the Republicans want to lose, the way they refuse to push anything.
The standard liberal position when caught doing something wrong: "I am a victim."
man, this is getting good. any thinking man or woman should have known that bill clinton was simply projecting with his 'right wing conspiracy' garbage. recently, off the top of my head:
1) climategate
2) carson/lewis
3) journolist
the writing is on the wall.
What if I told you I ran a top secret e-mail list of Republican
Presidents who haven't run up the deficit and were smarter
than a fifth-grader.
Sadly, no such list exists.
Every time I see a photo of a Journolist guy, it looks like he's in a gay bar. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
What? What? A Vast Left-Wing JournoList Conspiracy? Who woulda thunk it? Perhaps they should be called DemocratListas or LettWingJournistas or Propagandistas? How about LIberalPunkistas? It goes on and on.
Are any of these cretins going to lose their jobs? Don't hold your breath. But they are going to be sh*t stained from their participation in this unholy leftist Journalista slimy cabal for the rest of their putrid careers.
Well said. I missed that one.
you are legally correct but never going to see the inside of a court
It would be much easier for Klein to make the case if many things that were discussed on Journolist, didn't actually happen. Let's take, for instance, the delegitimize Fox News plan. What better way to do that than have no Democrat Debates on Fox News? What did that do for them? Well, it certainly didn't expose Barack Obama to any tough questions. I was amazed to read the opinions these "journalists" had of Fox News and their ways of dealing with them.
If our, supposedly, free press isn't colluding, why isn't there one major news outlet, outside of Fox News, presenting the other side of the story? On all the serious issues, not one differing opinion. On their editorial pages, not one differing opinion. How does that happen? Isn't there one independent thinker in our news organizations?
Ezra Klein is stuck in a game of chess with Tucker Carlson.
Klein doesn't know the extent of what Carlson has in his possession. Clearly, when the first e-mails were released, the sense one got from Klein (and other Journos) of the potential for damage was, Eh…not really all that bad. If that's all he's got, a little damage control and we'll put this to bed real quick.
Klein most likely figured The Daily Caller would go for the blockbuster right from the get-go, and all he'd need to do was get past that initial "shock".
He sacrificed a knight and a couple of pawns there.
Then, more e-mails were released – many of which were more explosive than the first round were.
And proved Klein lied about a lack of collusion in promoting a message.
A little more damage control – most from his friends in the MSM, who assured us this was nothing…just a bunch of "bloggers" bullshitting around like bloggers do.
No one believed it, of course.
Lost a bishop, both rooks, and another pawn there.
Then, Carlson released another round showing that these little jerkoffs were actually plotting ways to destroy Sarah Palin using her newborn, disabled baby, among other sneaky, underhanded, unethical stuff.
Now, all he's got is his queen and two pawns to protect him.
Klein got desparate. He had to know that Carlson has a lot more material. But what could he do? He knows that if Carlson has everything, then eventually everything becomes public, and the jig is up.
On the other hand, even if Carlson has as much as, say, 90% of the total archive, he's got a thread to hang on – he can make the context argument.
Yes folks, the e-mails that exonerate all these poor, maligned lefties exists in the 10% (theoretically) of the archives which Tucker hasn't managed to get his hands on.
Why not release these e-mails?
I predict it'll be something along the lines of, The public is really sick of this. It's obvious they weren't really interested in this story to begin with. All our friends in the MSM have said so all along. Why prolong a story no one's interested in.
Checkmate, Ezra.
This is what happens when kids steal their dads car,crash it,then try to cover up what happened,
Why do those journolist people look so creepy? They've got sleeze written all over their faces.
That photo of Ezra reminds me of many twenty-somethings that are so sure of themselves and what they believe that they are ready to do whatever it takes (lie, repeatedly?) to complete a task. Of course, in most cases, the tasks never involve any real work – just the ability to write/speak in circles with virtually no facts necessarily connected. Sometimes by the time one of these types begins to raise a family, loses a cushy job, watches a parent slowly die, etc they come to their senses and see things with much less of a "Progressive" view. I am encouraged by some of the early polling data that in the past 18 months the youth voters who so strongly supported the Dems/Obama are beginning to peel away from their adoration for anything Obama. Maybe in another 10-20 years the youth will be rebelling strongly against their "Progressive" parents similar to how many youth rebelled in the '60s against their conservative upbringing?
They do project, don't they?
The strategy Carlson is using is brilliant. In addition to Carlson winning this game of chess he's got Klein locked into playing, don't you know the weasels of journOlist are losing sleep over this, each worrying about when his/her most damning entries will be published online for all the world to see? Further, this strategy is keeping the story on the front page, so to speak. The story is staying fresh and new to us, the readers, whereas one or several long pieces would be all the talk for a few days after publication and then would move to the back, behind the next day's piece of bad news out of Washington DC.
Because they're creepy sleazebags.
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain. – Winston Churchill
Both the left and the right maintain a bunch of correct/unethical vehicles to get their points across. Difference in this case is the bountiful yield due to the technology involved.
Did the dive bar fad disappear? Personally, I enjoy a bit of shuffleboard and bud light.
Well, what he meant was now that you knew about it, it wasn't secret. They can be jerks for sure.
Im wondering-isnt there any laws against this type of behavior? This should be ilegal as hell, not to mention a colossal conflict of interest. We passed RICO laws in the 70s to go after the Mafia-why cant we use them against politicians and journalists who break laws?
its called the communist attempt to destroy America-during the 60s and 70s, the commies infiltrated our j-schools, our law schools and other institutions. Its as Bernie Goldberg said in "Bias", many in the media have never learned anything other than a far left viewpoint. Funny, but Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity,Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart all came out in the last 20 years or so and they werent infected with a far left bias. Funny how none of them attended j-schools ,either, which should serve as a clue as to where the real problem lies.
"victims" of there own hatred and stupidity. Jusr cant cut it in the real wolrld. Its as Rush says-who makes these people experts at anything?
Any bets there was? After all, who did Ira Magaziner work for before he was on Hilldebeasts healthscare team? The washington compost, I beleive. Some "qualification" for a healthcare guru.
Sure he didnt-ever listen to a group of media talking about a subject? They all use the exact same words. Im sure this is all coincidence there ,Ezra? Sure ,Wilbur.
Very well articulated. Thank you. An excellent post.
The word smarmy comes to mind.
I wish it were as simple as that. We've allowed our schools to teach this stuff and I'm not sure how we change it without overhauling the whole system. The journalism professors, who were commenting on Journolist, should be fired, they have no integrity. That would be a start. Those journalists who favored government intervention at Fox News, should be fired, they have no concept of the 1st Amendment. That would be a start.
Our children are being taught by the same closed minded individuals.
Sigh, if only we had a DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE……………..
What are you talking about, the unethical behavior of the Journolisters or the ethical behavior of Tucker Carlson?
We don't need laws about this stuff. There is only one reason to read any journalist, you believe they are reporting the news fairly and truthfully. Once a reporter, or a news organization for that matter, loses their integrity, they've lost it all because, in the end, that's all they have. There will always be a few people willing to read them because they blindly agree with them, but people looking to find out the truth behind the story, will never go to people like these guys. If you want to know the truth about something, and you had a choice between the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, which one would you trust to present the story truthfully, no matter where the chips fell? If you said the Wall Street Journal, that should answer your question.
So, we don't need RICO, we don't need laws, the law of supply and demand will take over and right now truth is in short supply.
Yes, but credit where credit's due.
The drip, drip, drip strategy (while certainly not new to cops, lawyers, and even news orgs) was perfected in its internet incarnation by Andrew Breitbart, with the O'Keefe-Giles ACORN videos.
It is brilliant – give 'em enough rope to hang themselves, let 'em complain about being hung with an old rope, and then tell 'em, "OK – here's a new rope for you to dangle on."
I've a hunch that this use of a strategy he helped perfect isn't Breitbart's only involvement in exposing the journOlisters.
Campaign finance laws were broken, too, because of some federal funding to journalism…or something to that effect. I'm not an attorney nor do I play one on TV, so don't get me to lyin'. Collusion, conspiracy, throwing the election of one party's candidates, campaign fraud, slander…there've got to be numerous charges that apply to all journOlisters and others that apply to only some of them.
Yeah, if every little felony were to be prosecuted, before you know it, D.C. would be a ghost town. </sarc>
"…I'm not sure how we change it without overhauling the whole system."
One step at a time.
You become active in your child's education. If they must attend a public school, move to an area with a performing system. Attend the school board meetings, stay in touch with the teachers, insist on reviewing the home/class work of your child. Simple stuff that all too often is not done by parents too busy with other activities misplaced on their lists of priorities.
If your situation allows, home school the young'uns or send 'em to a good private school.
University is another can-o-worms altogether and may require repeated assemblies of torches and pitchforks at both the University Regents meetings and assembled State Legislatures in order to induce a shifting away from indoctrination and back towards education. Without funding they do not exist, so they will pay attention to upheavals amongst the herds of cash cows.
It took forty to fifty years to reach this point, it'll not be straightened out over night.
Endeavor to persevere.
As you said, it took 40 to 50 years to get to this point; but we don't have 40 years to turn this around. Any plan has to start at the top, which would have to happen in 2 places, our colleges and universities and the school boards. It has to happen within 4 years of each other because, if you can get the colleges away from teaching all of this liberal claptrap, you'll still have the school boards and the upper management in the school systems, only hiring the liberals.
It is true the liberals have entrenched themselves into the education system and it's going to be a process to get them out.
He never knew I knew about it til well after this, in court.
What a creepy looking little maggot! Why are Progressive/Marxist/Communists all so frickin' UGLY??
If have emailed Ezra so many times it is not funny. He obviously lacks knowledge on the subject of the majority of his articles; most of which aremeer smears against non-liberals without offering much to the actual subject of his articles.
What degrees does he hold? One would think he is an authority on Health Care, Economics and a vast array of other subjects based upon his blogs.
Often I have emailed him to point out the errors he has made in his articles. I research what he proports as facts, only to find they are not always accurate but a meer political ploy.
He is not a Journalist. He is nothing more than a blogger and should not be respresented as more than that.
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