Greg Mitchell | The Nation

Glenn Greenwald. (AP Photo)

UPDATE #2  Pincus and the Post finally correct the article--with three, count 'em, key admissions, in three length grafs.  Humbling, or one would hope. 

UPDATE #1: Walter Pincus responds, a bit, to Washington Post media writer Erik Wemple. He “badly phrased” something, etc.  Love Wemple’s comment: “Upon first reading the Pincus column, the Erik Wemple Blog noted its skeptical tone and figured that Pincus was sticking up for his killer sources in the national security community. Bah, responds Pincus. ‘I didn’t talk to anybody,’ he said.” Still no corrections.

The most shameful part of the Walter Pincus/Glenn Greenwald episode is not that the venerable Pincus would write a shoddy column—he’s done it before, especially when he turns to punditry, along with producing much valuable reporting over the many decades that I’ve been reading him—but that his paper, The Washington Post would not correct any of the errors, thirty-seven hours later (and counting).

At one time, opinion pieces were governed by different standards, at least in terms of corrections, but that’s no longer true at most media outlets. So there’s no excuse for Pincus and the Post not to act.

I wasn’t going to write about this, because early yesterday Greenwald posted a lengthy letter to Pincus outlining his complaints about the column, describing both factual errors and alleged journalistic malpractice in raising unfair “innuendo” and “guilt-by-association.” The letter received wide linkage, including at my own blog, so that seemed to cover it.

But now more than a day has passed since the letter was sent, and as far as I can see, not a word has been changed in the Pincus piece—not even the most humorous error, with Pincus (apparently far from web-savvy) not understanding that the WikiLeaks blog had simply picked up a piece Greenwald had written for Salon, he didn’t pen it for them (which was supposed to be the damning point). Dan Froomkin, the former popular Washington Post blogger, weighed in on Twitter today, calling on the paper and Pincus to apologize to Greenwald. Jay Rosen called whole episode “a strange, strange, adventure” and “stupefying.”

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Also, this morning, Greenwald has now followed up with a column about all this for his home site, The Guardian. He reveals that Pincus, in response to his letter, e-mailed word that at least the “WikiLeaks” blog reference would be corrected. Greenwald replied that the proposed correction was in error. In any case, a correction still has not appeared online. Two excerpts from the Greenwald column:

Apparently, the Washington Post has decided to weigh in on the ongoing debate over “what is journalism?” with this answer: you fill up articles on topics you don’t know the first thing about with nothing but idle speculation, rank innuendo, and evidence-free accusations, all under the guise of “just asking questions”. You then strongly imply that other journalists who have actually broken a big story are involved in a rampant criminal conspiracy without bothering even to ask them about it first, all while hiding from your readers the fact that they have repeatedly and in great detail addressed the very “questions” you’re posing.

But shoddy journalism from the Washington Post is far too common to be worth noting. What was far worse was that Pincus’ wild conspiracy theorizing was accomplished only by asserting blatant, easily demonstrated falsehoods.

Concluding:

The paper’s official “corrections and clarifications” policy states that “the Washington Post always seeks to publish corrections and clarifications promptly after they come to our attention.” When corrections are to be made to articles published online, “the change should be made within the article and the correction should also be noted at the top of the item.”

The lengths to which some media outlets in this case have gone to assist the US government in trying to criminalize the journalism we’ve done has been remarkably revealing. But the willingness of the Post to aid in this effort by spewing falsehood-based innuendo, which they then permit to remain hour after hour even while knowing it’s false, is a reminder of how ill-advised it is to trust what you read in that establishment venue, and is a vibrant illustration of the reasons such organizations are held in such low esteem.

Greg Mitchell has written more than a dozen books and e-books, including two on WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, Iraq and the media, Hiroshima, and influential political campaigns, including 2008 and 2012. All books described here.

On this date in 1945, the great atomic scientist Leo Szilard finished a letter that would become the strongest (virtually the only) real attempt at halting President Truman’s march to using the atomic bomb—which was two weeks from its first test at Trinity—against Japanese cities.

Each summer I count down the days to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, marking events from 1945 that spurred the decision to drop the two bombs, raising plenty of my own questions along the way. Last year, I wrote nearly daily articles for The Nation. Of course, I won’t do that again, but I thought I’d launch it here with the Szilard letter. Over the next five weeks or so you can check my Pressing Issues blog.

I’ve written hundreds of articles and three books on the subject, Hiroshima in America (with Robert Jay Lifton), and more recently Atomic Cover-Up (on decades-long suppression of film shot in the atomic cities by the US military) and Hollywood Bomb (how an MGM 1947 drama was censored by the military and Truman himself).

It’s well known that as the Truman White House made plans to use the first atomic bombs against Japan in the summer of 1945, a large group of atomic scientists, many of whom had worked on the bomb project, raised their voices, or at least their names, in protest. They were led by the great Leo Szilard. On July 3, he finished a petition to the president for his fellow scientists to consider, which called atomic bombs “a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities.” It asked the president “to rule that the United States shall not, in the present phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs.”

The following day he wrote this cover letter (below). The same day, Leslie Groves, military chief of the Manhattan Project, wrote Winston Churchill’s science adviser seeking advice on how to combat Szilard and his colleagues. The bomb would be tested two weeks later and dropped over Hiroshima on August 6.

July 4, 1945

Dear xxxxxxxxxxxx,

Enclosed is the text of a petition which will be submitted to the President of the United States. As you will see, this petition is based on purely moral considerations.

It may very well be that the decision of the President whether or not to use atomic bombs in the war against Japan will largely be based on considerations of expediency. On the basis of expediency, many arguments could be put forward both for and against our use of atomic bombs against Japan.

Such arguments could be considered only within the framework of a thorough analysis of the situation which will face the United States after this war and it was felt that no useful purpose would be served by considering arguments of expediency in a short petition.

However small the chance might be that our petition may influence the course of events, I personally feel that it would be a matter of importance if a large number of scientists who have worked in this field went clearly and unmistakably on record as to their opposition on moral grounds to the use of these bombs in the present phase of the war.

Many of us are inclined to say that individual Germans share the guilt for the acts which Germany committed during this war because they did not raise their voices in protest against these acts. Their defense that their protest would have been of no avail hardly seems acceptable even though these Germans could not have protests without running risks to life and liberty. We are in a position to raise our voices without incurring any such risks even though we might incur the displeasure of some of those who are at present in charge of controlling the work on “atomic power”.

The fact that the people of the people of the United States are unaware of the choice which faces us increases our responsibility in this matter since those who have worked on “atomic power” represent a sample of the population and they alone are in a position to form an opinion and declare their stand.
Anyone who might wish to go on record by signing the petition ought to have an opportunity to do so and, therefore, it would be appreciated if you could give every member of your group an opportunity for signing.

Leo Szilard

Glenn Greenwald.(AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

I suppose that no one should be surprised that Edward Jay Epstein, one of the original JFK conspiracy theorists (I was a big fan in the 1960s, for a few weeks, when I was a kid), is back with an op-ed at the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page insinuating that Glenn Greenwald might be behind Edward Snowden’s career move to Booz Allen, for the purpose of getting those NSA docs and his big scoop.

In other words: the guy should be arrested and locked up. That is, Greenwald, as well as Snowden.

As usual, Greenwald critics of this bent totally ignore the fact that Bart Gellman of the more establishment Washington Post was also involved with Snowden early. That muddies the narrative, of course, not to mention ruffling other feathers.

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Well, Twitter was abuzz, as if it was WSJ and the Vince Foster “murder,” part II. For a bit of the flavor here’s a Storify trail of a Twitter debate in response featuring Michael Wolff, Jeff Jarvis and Greenwald himself. Also see video of Greenwald’s speech to the national socialist confab last night, introduced by Jeremy Scahill. He had dealt with some of the questions raised by Epstein and Wolff right there. And a fine new post from NYT public editor Margaret Sullivan on the who-is-a-journalist question.

Monday Update: David Carr's column today on the journalist vs. activist question is hardly a "hit" on Greenwald, but he does misfire badly on a key point near the end. Also see that link for another interesting Twitter debate between Greenwald and NYT's Damien Cave.

Here’s an edited collection of the earlier Storified tweets from Greenwald, Jarvis and Wolff:

Wolff: Ed Epstein argues possibility Snowden & @ggreenwald colluded on data grab frm Booze. Does that change narrative? tinyurl.com/n9gyuv2

Jarvis: @MichaelWolffNYC conspiratorial claptrap. @ggreenwald

Jarvis: @MichaelWolffNYC The phrases “what if” and “in on it” with no facts & only conjecture = conspiracy theory @ggreenwald

Greenwald: @MichaelWolffNYC Are you a thief & a plagiarist? I’ll go write my “what if?” column about that now. Just curious.

Wolff: Gentlemen, Epstein asks a simpler question than all this. Was there prior relationship btw @ggreenwald and Snowden? Did they cooperate?

Jarvis: @MichaelWolffNYC Have you watched the video I quoted? It’s in there. @ggreenwald

Greenwald: @MichaelWolffNYC Half of that WSJ op-ed is false, and I’ve answered your baseless question multiple times. Use this thing called “Google”

The Wall Street Journal isn't the only publication getting their facts wrong. 

Greg Mitchell’s latest book, just updated, probes the Bradley Manning case (with Kevin Gosztola). His other books, and blog, here.

(Courtesy of Flickr user David Shankbone)

Last night, just hours after Wendy Davis’s historic filibuster of a repressive anti-abortion bill ended in Austin, the great state of Texas set a modern milestone with its 500th execution, i.e., state murder, since 1976, when the death penalty was re-instituted in America. The prisoner, Kimberly McCarthy, 52—convicted of killing and robbing neighbor Dorothy Booth to subsidize her crack habit—was black (nothing unusual about that) and a woman (still a rarity).

Since the 1970s, Texas has carried out 37 percent of all of the executions in the USA. And nearly 400 of the state’s 500 have been ordered by governors Bush and Perry. But the total has declined in recent years, as opposition to the death penalty has grown in the state, and nationally.

In the latest case (as summed up by The Dallas Morning News):

Maurie Levin, McCarthy’s attorney, said McCarthy’s case was plagued by “shameful errors” of racial bias during jury selection by Dallas County prosecutors and ineffective assistance of counsel.

McCarthy was black. Booth was white.

Levin said the Texas courts’ refusal to examine McCarthy’s last-minute appeals this week about those issues “reflect problems that are central to the administration of the death penalty as a whole.”

Levin, a University of Texas law professor, has represented defendants sentenced to death since 1983. She is co-director of the school’s Capital Punishment Clinic.

McCarthy’s execution, as an “emblem of Texas’ 500th execution, is something all Texans should be ashamed of,” Levin said. Dallas County has a history of racial discrimination during jury selection.

With the execution about to go forward, ABC News chatted with the former warden at Huntsville who holds the modern record for overseeing 140 executions. He offered no regrets. Of the lethal injection executions, he said, “All you’re going to do there is watch a guy go to sleep.”

Michael Graczyk, an Associated Press reporter in Texas, is famous for witnessing hundreds of executions (I’ve interviewed him myself for a book, see below). It’s telling that the number is so high he has lost count.  He wrote this week, “About once every three weeks, I watch someone die.” But in his piece he offered no strong opinions on capital punishment, beyond the fact that watching someone die leaves strong “impressions.”

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(See here for my ebook Dead Reckoning on the history of capital punishment in America to the present day, covering key issues.)

Read Katha Pollitt’s take on Wendy Davis, superhero.