Patterico's Pontifications

7/24/2006

Another Brief Greenwald Note

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 1:08 am



I haven’t had a chance to post about the Glenn Greenwald thing — in part, because I haven’t had time, and in part, because Ace has been all over it.

But I’m not done with the issue. And I want to contradict something that Paul from Wizbang said:

If you need more evidence the party is over, Patterico who was all exclamation points yesterday, is now pointing to Ace and saying, “It’s was all his idea.” Being a prosecutor, he knows a weak case when he sees it.

Paul closed comments before I even saw his post, so I couldn’t leave a comment telling him he was wrong — but he was.

First, the exclamation points in my post title were ironic, as they almost always are when I use them. I’m not really a “serious exclamation points” guy. The title of my post was: “Devoted Fans of Glenn Greenwald Emphasize the Same Points About His Resume — From the Same IP Address!!”

But, see, Paul, I didn’t really think it was a bunch of devoted fans of Greenwald’s. I thought it was one guy — most likely Greenwald. So the exclamation points were intended to convey: look at this amazing coincidence!! when I didn’t really think it was a coincidence at all.

I hate explaining things like that. But I guess sometimes you have to.

Second, I said it was Ace’s scoop, not to distance myself, but for a wild and wacky reason: because it’s true. Paul is referring to this quote of mine:

Anyone looking for updates on the Greenwald kerfuffle should probably go to Ace’s. Keep in mind that this was his [Ace’s] discovery (actually his commenter Shawn’s), not mine — I just provided him with some IP evidence.

Guess what, Paul? It was Ace’s discovery. It was a collaborative effort to uncover the IP deception, but Ace was the one who spearheaded it.

Here’s how it came about. Late Wednesday night, I was headed to bed when an e-mail came in from Ace, asking me to check my comment logs to see if anyone had left a comment from a particular IP address. One of Ace’s commenters had seen numerous comments on various blogs that that sounded an awful lot like Glenn Greenwald — but which had been signed under various other names. One of those comments was at Ace’s, and the other two were at Goldstein’s and Riehl’s blogs. Ace’s commenter suspected the commenter of being Glenn Greenwald, and Ace asked us to check our logs for a particular IP.

I went to the “Manage Comments” box on Word Press and popped the IP address in. A bunch of comments popped up.

They were all from Glenn Greenwald.

Ace and I discussed it on the chat box for a while, and then I suggested that we should speak on the phone. We struggled through getting some screenshots, and I e-mailed mine to him. Ace made it clear that he was going to publish a post on it right away. In fact, he was saying it all out loud as he was typing it, which was very entertaining, and allowed me to “hear” what an Ace post sounds like when read in Ace’s voice.

So we both posted about it at the same time. I think we were circumspect in the way we expressed it in our posts, though we privately believed and still believe he’s good for it (and that has come out in some overenthusiastic comments I’ve made). Since then, Greenwald has denied sock-puppetry, and I’ve worked on tying some of the evidence together. So has Ace. You’ll be seeing more from both of us in the coming days.

But it’s a very complex matter, made more complex by Greenwald’s denial. It’s a highly circumstantial case, without a smoking gun. It’s not something you could prosecute in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt, based on what we have so far — and it may well never be. But I think a good circumstantial case has been built, and it’s one that is plenty good enough for the court of public opinion.

But we need to bring it all together so you can see it in one place. And constructing a post like that, in your spare time, takes work and time. It doesn’t happen overnight.

But it will happen.

For those of you who want to see the case made in a cohesive manner, that’s good news. For the rest of you, there’s the scroll wheel on your mouse, which can take you down to the next post. I’ll even warn you, as I did in this post, with that magic word: “Greenwald.” Those of you who are sick of hearing about him are welcome to use that word in the title as a sign that it’s time to head for the scroll wheel.

P.S. It was brief — compared to what’s coming.

UPDATE: Ace has a little quiz based on some similarities I pointed out to him between the language of Greenwald and his suspected sock-puppets Ellers and Ellensburg. Better, in the same post he also has a hilarious “Boys from Brazil” poster that you don’t want to miss.

16 Responses to “Another Brief Greenwald Note”

  1. Paul closed comments before I even saw his post, so I couldn’t leave a comment telling him he was wrong — but he was.

    Yep. That’s Paul for you.

    Pixy Misa (87a9a3)

  2. Paul is a douche. When I originally came across his post, I came this close to telling him as much in a comment, only to think “better” of it and lay off until I’d had a chance to consult you. I figured I’d better not spout off when there was only a 99% chance I was right, vs. a 1% chance he’d actually communicated with you about the topic more recently than I had, and therefore actually knew something I didn’t. By the time I’d gotten off my lazy ass long enough to contact you to confirm or deny, the douche had already closed his comments.

    What a douche. Not a Greenwald-level überdouche, mind you, just an ordinary douche.

    Xrlq (f52b4f)

  3. If O-Dub is the “Left’s dumbest blogger”, then Paul from Wizbang is hands-down the Right’s dumbest blogger.

    j.d. (cffa04)

  4. Paul is the reason I stopped reading Wizbang a year or two ago.

    My impression was that the guy is 100% integrity-free.

    LagunaDave (07473b)

  5. I’m no fan of Paul at Wizbang.

    But when I read your short “over to Ace” post, I also took it as implied loss of interest in the case. Maybe it was a hasty reading of a short post.

    I’m looking forward to your summary post.

    The Commissar (9bbccc)

  6. P, thanks again for the good legwork you and Ace are doing on this, and thanks in advance for the coming summary piece.

    A tiny bit of justice in the universe….. Ahhhhhhhhh……

    Ellersburgwhoresonellis (04f85b)

  7. “some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when one finds a trout in the milk.”
    g.k. chesterton

    assistant devil's advocate (28d526)

  8. Sometimes I think it ought to be legal to smack anyone upside the head who disparages evidence by identifying it as “circumstantial.” People fry as a result of circumstantial evidence.

    Xrlq (f52b4f)

  9. Amen, Xrlq. If this were a civil suit, GiGi would lose in a heartbeat.

    Pablo (efa871)

  10. Paul’s a self-important, rude, hypocritical blowhard who can’t handle debate, being constantly proven wrong, and who’s presence detracts greatly from what’s an otherwise superb site – Wizbang.
    I stopped reading regularly when they had the “April Fools” about him being asked to leave (which was fully justified).
    Paul attacked you? Then shut dwn comments?
    Well, even though I thought you were right before, I’m even more sure you’re right now.
    Sometimes your enemies are a better indicator of character than your friends.

    Unix-Jedi (1f40e9)

  11. Good to know I am not alone. The guy can be very knowledgable about some things but man question him on anything and its over.

    chad (719bfa)

  12. […] An explanation of how this all came about is here. And a full summary of all the evidence is still to come. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Devoted Fans of Glenn Greenwald Emphasize the Same Points About His Resume — From the Same IP Address!! (421107)

  13. Ha! This thread is funny. You pull an April fool’s prank and prove a bunch of people to be morons and a year and a half later they still hold a grudge over it.

    Confirming, you’re ~still~ clueless idiots.

    But at least I get a laugh out the fact a year and half later you’re still stewing.

    Paul (020f0d)

  14. Hey Paul, have you and Kevin managed to figure out how to read the originating IP addresses off of emails yet?

    Shad (b451f8)

  15. Oh, that explains your defense of Greenwald’s multiple iGlentities gambit, Paul. It was just a July 22nd joke. Geez. That’s a relief. You had me thinking that you were a total retard for a while.

    Dan Collins (538859)

  16. Paul, either enable comments or don’t. Every time you get your ass handed to you, it is the same routine; “Comments Closed ! I have seen enough!”

    Not suprising that you have no respect for other blogger’s comment sections either. Coward.

    john(lesser) (ec421c)


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