The messenger, and how to shoot him

If you haven't read it yet, check out Glenn Greenwald's latest column, in which he discusses the smear tactics used against him in retaliation for his groundbreaking work on the NSA scandal. Apparently, certain pseudo-journalists (actually toadies for the spooks) have been scouring through old legal cases in which Greenwald participated, looking for anything -- anything -- that might be twisted against him.

It gets worse:

Just today, a New York Times reporter emailed me to ask about the IRS back payments. And the reporter from the Daily News sent another email asking about a student loan judgment which was in default over a decade ago and is now covered by a payment plan agreement.

You get the picture.

Y'know what this situation reminds me of? The Gary Webb story.

Webb was the journalist for the San-Jose Mercury-News who dared to write about CIA involvement in the drug trade. The Los Angeles Times (generally considered a liberal-ish paper) came down on him like the proverbial ton of bricks. Pressure was brought to bear on the SJMN, and Webb found himself re-assigned to a crappy beat, which he covered until the writer was "axed" to resign. He eventually committed suicide. Later, both the CIA's own Inspector General and the L.A. Times itself admitted that Webb got it right.

These words from Webb may give us a foretaste of what Greenwald can expect:

"The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post," he said. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. If you work through friendly reporters on major newspapers, it comes off as the New York Times saying it and not a mouthpiece of the CIA."

One of the great virtues of Jim DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed, the work advertised in the upper right-hand corner of this blog, is the book's detailed investigation of the press crusade mounted against New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison. While a mere "conspiracy theorist" might posit those attacks to be the work of the FBI or CIA, DiEugenio offers iron-clad, courtroom-quality proof that many of those "journalists" were, in fact, working for the government.

As Garrison himself once said, "You just don't dance with the CIA."

So expect to hear more about every stain in every pair of soiled underwear that ever rested in Glenn Greenwald's top dresser drawer. These attacks will prove useful to spook-watchers: They will allow us to compile a list of those reporters who work for The Man.

More insidious -- and harder for outsiders to prove -- will be the pressure brought to bear on Greenwald's employers. That, I predict, will come next.