do you have something to hide?

was journolist really ever about anyOTHER then coordinating the democrats narrative?

If that is really the case, it’s better evidence than ever before that we need a better press corps, including a press corps that has even the most basic of technology skills.

As evidence that it’s not the case, I give you

http://elenasinbox.com/

which is a reconstruction of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s inbox, pieced together from archival records. Compared to that, downloading your own email is as easy as it gets.

But until outdone by axe-murdering cannibals making internet offers to acquire the fat boy’s whereabouts with a view to deep-frying his sweaty cadaver, as an illustration of his venality it may have to suffice.

But neither do I think that we’ve heard the last of JournoList. It’s not clear who had it in for Weigel, or why, but it’s not hard to imagine other members of the mailing list finding themselves in similar trouble. I strongly suspect the underlying motivation was a sense of hypocrisy – most likely a leftist annoyed that Weigel appeared friendly to conservatives in print while bad-mouthing leading figures in private, or a right-leaning member (and there were a few) ticked that Weigel was covering the conservative beat while writing such e-mails. And I’d be willing to wager that, sooner or later, some other member of the JournoList will incur the suspicion or professional jealousies of one of his peers. Someone will dig up an old e-mail appearing to reveal hypocrisy, and deliberately leak it. I can’t believe that Dave Weigel was the only intemperate member of the list, and so fireworks will again ensue. Indeed, it may well be worse next time. At least Weigel, as a reporter-blogger, was expected to have some personal views. Imagine the firestorm if a straight-up reporter is revealed to have expressed personal contempt for or animosity toward his sources, or to persons that he has covered.

So no, we’re not going to see all 400 members embarrassed. But the list will hang over the heads of a more limited number, a veritable Damocles’ Sword. And even if none of its messages are ever again leaked – and I find that improbable – it will nevertheless have a corrosive effect. Members know what they wrote. They know what can one day be used against them. And that knowledge is likely to constrain their future writing, perhaps push them to preemptively make recompense or to demonstrate their actual objectivity by flattering those whom they insulted, and otherwise warp their journalistic judgment.

Ezra Klein was naive to think such a discussion could ever remain private, and those participants who were unwise enough to voice opinions over the list that they would not have otherwise expressed in public were similarly unwise. The damage they did to the public trust and to their own careers is only now starting to become clear.

The fact of right-wing radicals being garish circus clowns in no way exonerates pwogwessive mimes of the mens rea involved in trying to out-clown them and still hog the middle of the road. That’s a losing battle of the first order, also a major distraction from other things.

LOL!

It doesn’t actually have to be telling that Brietbart didn’t want the contents of the list until it was shown that media organizations were spineless enough to fire “liberals” over its content–even the most casual observer could surmise that Brietbart is up to no good. “This is why we can’t have nice things” updated for the 21st century.