Look at renegade journalist Glenn Greenwald getting all territorial about his NSA leaker Edward Snowden today. It’s as if he’s saying to The Washington Post, ‘BACK OFF BITCH, HE’S MINE.’
I can’t really blame him. Back in the summer of 2001 when Chandra Levy went missing amid an affair with slimeball, blow-dried Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.) that involved oil massages in his Adams Morgan love palace, it was my story at The Hill. As in MY STORY. Any reporter or intern who even breathed in the direction of Levy and Condit got glances filled with cold daggers in their skulls and a firm declaration that it was my beat and not to be touched. Looking back on that, that was a little ridiculous and I don’t even know how I got away with that attitude. But live and learn, and share. There’s plenty of room for multiple stories on a topic.
But not Snowden. Mess with the facts on Snowden and you might as well rip out Greenwald’s liver at this point.
“Journalism”: The US Govt asserts with no evidence that Snowden took 1.7 million docs, so now it’s deemed a fact http://t.co/ZLnv8jmOCb
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 10, 2014
When serial tweeter and the moral conscience of Washington and, National Journal‘s Ron Fournier, pressed Greenwald on this, he replied, “No – I know how many he gave me, and it’s nowhere near that number.” He added, “If US Govt says this tomorrow, journalists will repeat that as fact.”