WHAT ARE THE GOBSHITES SAYING THESE DAYS?

By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

(Optional Video Accompaniment to This Post)

Welcome back to our weekly survey of the state of Our National Dialogue which, of course, is what Leonard Bernstein would have produced had he conducted the Concerts For Young Bonobos on public television.

Welcome, everyone, to Versailles. Eat the finest food. Drink the finest wines. Jostle for a place at court. Bestow upon yourself an estate on the far Vineyard by the sea. Throw coins and scraps of food to the peasants from the balconies. Dance, monkey, dance.

GREGORY: To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movement, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?    

OK. I don’t have as much of a problem with this question per se as a lot of people do, inartfully phrased though it is. Glenn Greenwald had to know it was coming in some form and, surely, the thought of prosecution has to have crossed his mind, since he’s written extensively about it, and I think that anyone who is campaigning for an open society and a free debate on anything should welcome any question, no matter how hostile. And, in addition, to the roaring cheers of the dozens of people who still watch this mess, the Dancin’ Master’s open display of public foofery gave Greenwald a chance to plant him 15 rows deep into the bleachers.

I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalist should be charged with felonies. The assumption in your question David is completely without evidence – the idea that I’ve aided and abetted him in any way. The scandal that arose in Washington before our stories began was about the fact that the Obama administration is trying to criminalize investigative journalism by going through the emails and phone records of AP reporters, accusing a Fox News journalist of the theory that you just embraced, being a co-conspirator in felonies for working with sources. If you want to embrace that theory that every investigative journalist in the United States who work with their sources, who receive classified information is a criminal, and it’s precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States. It’s why The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer said investigative reporting has come to a standstill, her word, as a result of the theory that you just referenced.

Now, if he had any self-awareness, the Dancin’ Master would have considered the question to be asked-and-answered, licked his wounds, salved his well-kicked hindquarters, and moved on to other matters. But he heard the distant strains of the harpsichord and the faint laughter of the king and queen and he feared for his place at court. So, we got this. Dance, monkey, dance.

GREGORY: Well the question of who’s a journalist may be up to a debate with regard to what you are doing.

Every actual journalist at NBC should spit every time David Gregory walks by. Hell, the janitorial staff should spit as he walks by, but that would simply be making more work for themselves, so I guess they won’t. As someone who’s career has straddled the Big Ditch between the old media and the new, I will grant you that the definition of who’s a journalist has become rather fluid over the past few decades. Whatever you may think of Glenn Greenwald — and, Jesus, he makes it tough sometimes — what he’s doing with Edward Snowden is journalism by any definition anyone ever proposed for it. (He’s arranging logistical help for an important source? Newspapers used to do that with some regularity. It’s even an important plot point in both the greatest newspaper movie ever made (His Girl Friday) and in the second-greatest newspaper movie ever made — Deadline USA with Humphrey Bogart.) Meanwhile, let us recall that a former chief of staff for Dick Cheney testified under oath in the Scooter Libby trial that MTP was that White House’s preferred launching pad for arrant bullshit. Let us recall the marvelous quote the late, sainted Tim Russert gave to Bill Moyers in which he said he’d wished “somebody had called him” to warn him that we were being lied into a war. Under the Dancin’ Master, the show has devolved further into being a playground for the courtier press. Maybe we do need a new definition of what journalism is. But, whatever new definition emerges, it shouldn’t be developed by the host of Meet The Fking Press, which is no more “journalism” than Duck Dynasty is a nature program.

This was a career defining moment. It’s rare that someone reveals himself quite as clearly as the Dancin’ Master does in that little by-play. He will “debate” who is or is not a journalist, and the rest of us can wait under the balcony and wait for scraps. The clearly batty Peggy Noonan is a journalist, but Glenn Greenwald may not be.  Journalism has sickened itself with respectability, debilitated itself with manners, crippled itself with politesse, and David Gregory may well be Patient Zero for all of this. As my Irish grandmother used to say, mother of god, who the hell is he when he’s at home?

That was the big moment of the weekend by far. But there were some other, lovely highlights. Over on CBS, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions eagerly informed former Akkadian cavalry embed Bob Schieffer that any bipartisan attempt to pass an immigration-reform bill would be just a matter of handing out free frijoles for votes.

And so I think we appeal to — we move away from ethnic politics and we try to appeal to all people based on what’s best for America and for them.

“Ethnic politics”? Somebody go over and gently pry the gin bottle out of Marco Rubio’s hand before he wakes up. I once again despair of the rebranding.

And we conclude with a visit to This Week With The Clinton Guy Shocked By Blowjobs. They had the weekend’s big “get” — General Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, and the general would like the country to know that it can have its phone sex just fine without worrying about his people listening in and wanking away the afternoon at their desks.

When — on Friday, we pushed a Congress over 50 cases where these contributed to the understanding and, in many cases, disruptions of terrorist plots. And I brought with me a quote, because I thought it was important to read this, and as an Army officer, you may know I can’t read that good. But I’m going to try.

(Isn’t he so cuuuutte? Really, that part is adorable.)

This is a report issued by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2012 in support of the reauthorization of the 2008 amendments to FISA, and I quote, “Through four years of oversight, the committee has not identified a single case in which a government official engaged in willful effort to circumvent or violate the law.”

Yes, General, and you will pardon me as I back my eighteen-wheeler up through that word “willful” right there. You go right on there with your free-skate program. Oooh, look at that, a triple lutz!

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that was the government of Hong Kong putting out that statement. Are you confident that we have not broken the laws of Hong Kong?

ALEXANDER: I’m confident that we’re following the laws that our country has in doing what we do. We have a set of laws that guide how NSA acts; we follow those laws. We have tremendous oversight by all three portions of the government: the courts, Congress and the administration. Now when you look at these laws and the way they’ve been passed and the oversight mechanisms that we have, I am confident that we are following our laws.

I am fairly confident that the general is dealing in outright crapola here. And it came to a crescendo of crapola later.

So let me put, first of all, the prime directive on the table.

(Good. Starfleet Command is in charge now. I feel better.)

The FISA law makes it clear: in order for the NSA to target the content of a U.S. persons communications, anywhere in the world — anywhere — NSA requires probable cause and a court order, a specific court order.

(Which it always provides. Always. As in, every case. As in, “Sit, FISA Court. Roll over. Fetch. Good doggie.”)

So if we’re targeting outside the U.S. a terrorist, and they happen to talk to a U.S. person inside the United States, yes, we would follow that law.

(Why not? Nobody ever says no.)

In the minimization procedures that I think were leaked earlier this week, talk about the responsibilities that we have now have with respect to those U.S. persons. And we follow those. We train our people how to do this right.

(Prove that. Oops, sorry. You can’t. Virtue is itself secret.)

We get oversight by Justice; we get oversight by the courts.

(A court. And a rubber stamp the size of a drill press.)

We get oversight by the administration…

(Stop it. You’re killing me. Really.)

…and by Congress…

(Which can’t do dick because, you know, everything’s secret.)

all three parts of government.

(All three of which are as complicit in this as we are.)

If I were a real journalist like David Gregory, this all might make me depressed.