I don’t think all these Daily Caller stories demonstrate that Journolist was a grand liberal media conspiracy, and almost everyone writes intemperate, sarcastic emails from time to time that would be embarrassing if leaked. Who cares?
Still, if this were a conservative listserv that had been leaked I don’t think liberal writers would be too outraged about privacy issues. And in fact, if you are writing anything in an electronic form that can be forwarded, you have essentially relinquished your right to privacy. Politicians don’t have it, why should journalists?
And there are some embarrassing remarks that have come out in the past few days. Some of the more steamed up liberal writers having orgasms on Obama’s election night are every bit as embarrassing as Rich Lowry ejaculating on his keyboard when writing about Sarah Palin.
“It’s all I can do not to start bawling.”
“I had to close my office door yesterday because I was watching YouTube videos of elderly African Americans saying what this meant to them and tearing up.” (Which reminds me of this Onion item).
The story published today reveals Journolisters talking about how to reply to Palin’s nomination. One comment: “That’s excellent! If enough people – people on this list? – write that the pick is sexist, you’ll have the networks debating it for days. And that negates the SINGLE thing Palin brings to the ticket.”
Andrew Sullivan is dead on here: “There was a cozy, self-satisfied network of writers, bloggers, and journalists who shared a broad progressive position and supported the Democratic party (but often disagreed as well). The valid criticism is not that this is a conspiracy, but a clique, a clique that at times (but not always) fostered the notion of coordination, media management, and even petitions.”
Incidentally, Eric Alterman talking about “Fucking Nascar retards” is also pretty embarrassing, but it’s ironic that Jeffrey Goldberg pointed it out. In another item about Journolist, Goldberg wrote: “I tend to believe that group-think can lead people in dangerous directions, and so I try to avoid groups like this in any case.”
Jeffery Goldberg is a critic of “group-think”? This is the same Jeffrey Goldberg who wrote all those articles during the Iraq war — an example of media group-think at its worst — about Saddam Hussein’s WMD capabilities and his links to Osama bin Laden? That, as they say, is rich.
Note: Unlike Tucker Carlson, I never applied to be a member of Jornolist.
