Breaking news: Glenn Greenwald has become a stickler for ‘factual accuracy’

Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but the left’s favorite sockpuppet, Glenn Greenwald (who has a couple of NYT “bestsellers,” dontcha know), has developed an obsession of sorts for making sure other people get their facts straight before posting/publishing them. I find this development very intriguing, and definitely worth a much closer look.

His target du jour (for many weeks, actually) has been noted lefty “sell-out” Joe Klein, who I should point out is one of the few liberals out there who comprehends and has written often about the importance of the US winning in Iraq. That should be the only clue anyone out there needs as to understand how the far left despises Klein, and why they go out of their way to “correct” any halfway sane liberal who they believe is “horrific” and “deceitful.” A liberal who wants us to succeed in Iraq? He’s a damned heretic who must be punished. Klein’s latest sin is that he wrote a column last week ridiculing Democrats on their FISA stance, a column that numerous far lefties are claiming contain multiple factual errors. Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard writes the thirty second version of events here.

Greenwald has spearheaded the effort to get lefties to complain to Time’s editors, and Firedoglake Commander Jane Hamsher (she of Joe Lieberman in blackface infamy) posted the name and phone number of the editor who was supposedly assigned to fact check Klein’s column before it was published, in order to drum up support from “concerned” lefties who are only interested in “truth” (cough). I think it’s great to see a cult leader like Greenwald so interested in making sure “the facts” get reported accurately, whether they are reported by mainstream news media reporters or columnists themselves. Without having even read what Klein wrote, I applaud Greenwald’s campaign to keep media folks honest, as well as the inspiration he’s provided to other like-minded individuals to do the same.

But what would be even better if he held himself to the same standards he does other columnists. Sadly, he does not. You can read more documentation on GG’s numerous dishonest arguments here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and last but not least, here.

With all that in mind, I’d say contacting the editors at Salon is in order. After all, if factual accuracy is of such paramount importance to Glenn Greenwald – something Salon editors surely must know after the numerous posts he’s written in an attempt to expose Joe Klein as “horrific” and “deceitful” – then Salon’s editors need to know that Greenwald is not living up to the same journalistic standards he and his cult worshippers demand of other writers.

Contact Salon’s editors today and let them know what you think of Glenn Greenwald’s own journalistic “standards” (or should I say lack thereof?). To be sure, it’s important for non-paid and paid writers alike to hold themselves to high standards of accuracy, but there’s an unwritten rule out that that says the standards for paid writers are even higher. That is, unless you happen to be a columnist for the New York Times, of course.

Update I: Heh.

Update II: I want an autographed copy of this upcoming bestseller!

Update III: Jon Henke writes:

Glenn Greenwald is guilty of the same kind of deception of which he accuses Joe Klein. I know that because he did it to me. I emailed him to correct the record, including a link to demonstrate that he’d misrepresented me. Greenwald declined to correct the record, or even to present the facts that I had shown him.