Greenwald is unfit to write for a news outlet like The Guardian.

What exactly does Glenn Greenwald stand for? Is he a far-left progressive? Leftist libertarian? Closet Trump supporter? (This one I don’t think is real, but I do think he’d rather smear Democrats than push back against Trump.) Do we choose one from Column A and two from Column B? Whatever else he may be, he has proven he is no friend of the Democratic Party. His constant attacks and smears are, whether by design or “accident,” undermining and weakening Democrats’ attempts to fight back against the GOP’s march towards fascism. His support for strong progressive candidates like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon is laudable, but I believe his larger motive is to help drive wedges between the progressive wing and the other groups on the Democratic “spectrum.”

And then there’s today’s ugly and pointless attack on MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance, MSNBC itself, and Democrats in general.

Initially I wasn’t sure what prompted him to write this article. He cites a legitimate error by Nance from August 2016, where Nance erroneously told MSNBC viewers, ‘Jill Stein has a show on Russia Today.” As far as I know, she does not have a show on RT and never has, though I believe she has been a guest on some RT broadcasts, And there is, of course, her infamous December 2015 jaunt to Moscow to celebrate RT’s ten-year anniversary with stalwart fascists/autocrats/assholes such as Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn. But more about her in a bit.

Greenwald has now decided to take a whack at Nance for his two-year old gaffe, and launched it by smearing him:

[Nances’] background is quite sketchy but [he] is presented by the cable network (and now by NBC News) as an “intelligence expert” and former intelligence officer for the U.S. Navy.

“Sketchy” background? Is Greenwald implying that Nance isn’t an “intelligence expert” or even a “former intelligence officer” for the Navy? Greenwald can take that innuendo and shove it right in his ear. Here’s Nance’s thumbnail bio, sourced from Wikipedia:

He graduated from college with a degree in Arabic. Obviously he knows more about Arabic cultures than, say, Glenn Greenwald.

He is a decorated Naval veteran with 20 years of service, "was involved in numerous counter-terrorism, intelligence, and combat operations ... garnered expertise within the fields of intelligence and counterterrorism [and was] an instructor in wartime and peacetime Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), training Navy and Marine Corps pilots and aircrew how to survive as a prisoner of war."

Nance helped create the Navy's Advanced Terrorism, Abduction and Hostage Survival course of instruction. Think he knows something about terrorism, intelligence and counter-intelligence?

But wait, there's more. After retiring honorably from the Navy in 2001, he founded a private intelligence support company, Special Readiness Services International (SRSI). He was a first responder to the American Airlines Flight 77 strike on the Pentagon on 9/11. He was "an intelligence and security contractor in Iraq, Afghanistan, the UAE and North Africa."

Whether you like private contractors working with the military on intelligence and security matters or not, I'd say his bona fides as a terrorism, intelligence and counter-intelligence expert are legitimate. Greenwald also leaves out the fact that in 2007, Nance published an article on the influential Small Wars Journal titled "Waterboarding is Torture ... Period" that was republished in a Pentagon publication and led the Defense Department to condemn the use of waterboarding, as did his powerful testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on the subject.

“Sketchy” my ass.

Sit your Russian-loving ass down, Greenwald. A real American is saluting.

Greenwald then goes on to write:

What Nance said was made up out of whole cloth – fabricated – in order to encourage MSNBC viewers to believe that Stein, one of the candidates running against Clinton, was a paid agent of the Kremlin and was an employee of RT.

How exactly does he know this? Unless he’s developed telepathy, he’s making some damn big assumptions. It definitely was a wrong statement, and should have been corrected. As far as calling Stein a “paid agent of the Kremlin,” let’s look at that for a moment.

I don’t know if any rubles have been slipped into her bank accounts, but it’s pretty damn clear that Stein has been a shill for Putin and Russia for a good long time now. Think Progress reporter Casey Michel writes:

By all appearance [sic], Stein seemed more than willing [during the campaign] to spout Kremlin talking points at every turn – and all, it appears, for free.

NBC reported on how strong RT’s support was for the Stein candidacy. RT hosted and broadcast the Green Party’s 2016 presidential “debate.” Michel again:

Where other Green Party candidates boycotted the debate because it was hosted on a Russian propaganda channel – one candidate described it as the “worst kind of representation of what the Green Party should be” – Stein instead lauded the hosts, describing the debate on RT as a “step towards real democracy and an inspiration for ... millions of Americans.”

Does she think having Trump as president is a “step towards real democracy and an inspiration for … millions of Americans”? She’s on record as saying she believes Clinton would have made a worse president than Trump, so yes, I think she might well think this.

Stein and Greenwald have a mutual friend and admiree, Julian Assange. Assange spoke (remotely) at the Green Party’s 2016 convention, and Stein calls him a “hero in my book.”

Like Trump, Stein has repeatedly attacked NATO on behalf of Putin, claiming that NATO had “surrounded” Russia with nuclear weapons, and in April 2016 said that NATO is only fighting “enemies we invent to give the weapons industry a reason to sell more stuff.” So Russia is an “invented enemy.” All of this stuff about Russia sabotaging the 2016 US elections is just “invented.” Sure thing, Jill.

She and her VP candidate, Ajamu Baraka, repeatedly defended Russia’s invasion and occupation of Crimea, with Baraka even claiming that Russia didn’t shoot down Flight MH 17 over Ukraine, instead calling it a “major false flag operation” designed to besmirch the Russians.

Back to Greenwald’s sniveling about MSNBC and Nance:

To date – almost two years later – neither NBC News nor MSNBC, nor a single journalist who works for either one of those media outlets – has corrected this significant falsehood, despite obviously knowing that it was broadcast to their viewers. In other words, NBC News and MSNBC knows that it told its viewers something that was materially false, and yet refuses to correct it. Please, defenders of this network: tell me what that says about its integrity, about its real function, about whether it is a real news outlet.

Yes, Jesus please us, yes yes. Nance made an error. MSNBC didn’t correct it. Now let me ask Greenwald, what does your support for Stein, WikiLeaks, and Russia say about YOUR integrity and your “real function”? Did you object to Russian bots promoting the hell out of Stein on Facebook and Twitter? Are you objecting to Stein’s dismissal of the Russian sabotage campaign against US democracy or are you joining her and Trump in calling it “fake news”? In the same Vice profile linked above, she said she was proud of her role in costing Clinton the election. Do you join her in that, too? (See the bit below about Greenwald’s frequent appearances on Fox News.)

I asked at the beginning why Greenwald would bring up a two-year old error by Nance. Later in the article, he explains it. You're gonna love it.

He very recently went to Moscow to take part in an RT-sponsored "cybersecurity conference" moderated by RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan and featuring Sergey Nalobin, the acting deputy director of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Way to collude with Russia, Glenn. He took part in a panel about "fake news." claims that the panel was infested by "harsh Putin critics," and says he agreed with Nalobin that Russia is "the victim of disinformation and Fake News campaigns," though he says he noted that Russia also perpetuates some campaigns. He gave a short press briefing after the conference (it’s an RT link, be warned) where:

The primary point I made that received the most attention – namely, that it has become regarded as suspicious and even treasonous merely to visit Russia, and that I accepted the invitation to attend in part to combat that toxic, dangerous and xenophobic perception – is the statement of mine that RT highlighted on social media.

After the interview, Greenwald whines — and reading through it, it sure comes across as whining to me — that Nance lied about him on Twitter. Nance wrote that "Greenwald shows his true colors as an agent of Trump & Moscow. now we know why he helped Snowden defect, covers for Wikileaks attack on Democracy & shills for Fox News. He’s deep in the Kremlin pocket. ... [he] reports into his masters in Moscow to help set the record straight about how misunderstood Russia is (when not sucking up to Trump on Fox). This is the literal definition of a propaganda Useful Idiot. #NoYoureThePuppet."

Before we look at Greenwald’s ankle-biting of a man whose shoes he isn’t fit to shine, let’s take a moment. Greenwald is arguably functioning as a “useful idiot” for the Kremlin. He is demonstrably “deep in the Kremlin pocket.” Does he consider himself a Russian agent, or does he consider the Kremlin his “masters in Moscow”? That I don’t know. But he damn well behaves as one. As for his “sucking up to Trump on Fox,” there’s a godawful number of links on Google to Greenwald’s appearances on Fox. Here’s just one, where he gleefully accuses MSNBC and everyone else of willfully repeating lies about Russian interference fed to them by the US intelligence “deep state.” (He doesn’t actually use the term “deep state,” which probably would have led host Tucker Carlson to wet his Underoos, but he sure kicked the shit out of the American media and made Carlson beam with joy.)

Greenwald accuses Nance of perpetuating deliberate lies about him and his association with Russia. As I noted, that isn’t what Nance said. He didn’t call him a Russian intelligence agent. He called him a “useful idiot” who is acting as a Russian agent. As for the bit about his “masters in Moscow,” that’s a bit of a stretch, but claims of hyperbole aside, Greenwald’s sitting on an RT-sponsored panel in Moscow with a senior Foreign Ministry official is getting pretty close to that line.

Nance, Greenwald writes, "knows that he is free to lie this way with impunity ... because he works for an organization – MSNBC – that masquerades as a news outlet but actively encourages its employees to lie this way about anyone who criticizes the Democratic Party." His body of proof? Nance’s August 2016 error about Jill Stein working for RT. That’s it.

Greenwald must have learned something from his frequent stints on Fox, because he then compares Nance to Joe McCarthy, says “NBC News and MSNBC have essentially merged with the CIA and intelligence community and thus use their tactics” (his entire body of proof? NBC/MSNBC has hired John Brennan and a few military and intelligence officials as paid experts) and broadens his attacks on the Democratic Party as a whole, citing Howard Dean’s “secret” associations with corporate interests to “prove” that the Dems are coordinating false attacks on our wonderful brothers and sisters in the Kremlin to advance their own aims.

What do I say to all of this? Fuck you, Glenn Greenwald, you useful and willing tool of the Kremlin. Fuck you for undermining the Clinton campaign in 2016, and fuck you for your upcoming attempts to undermine the Dems in 2018. Fuck you sideways.