"Greenwald is an advocate, not a journalist" This is important to remember.

[Maedhros]

118. You (and others) have seized upon one passage from "How Would A Patriot Act?"

taken out of context and published in 2006. You then proceed to ignore not only the premise of the book itself - a scathing criticism of the Bush Administration - but also seven years' worth of Greenwald's writing since then.

I assume the purpose is to trick those who are unfamiliar with Greenwald's work into discounting his recent reporting on the NSA, which is somewhat ironic: "How Would A Patriot Act?" presented a vehement argument against the excesses of the Bush Administration vis-a-vis unwarranted electronic surveillance program. This is entirely consistent with Greenwald's current vehement argument against the excesses of the Obama Administrations questionably-warranted electronic surveillance program.

The element of Greenwald's work that infuriates both Democrats and Republicans is that he consistently argues for or against policies, not people. If the people in office change, but bad policy remains the same, then Greenwald continues to criticize the policy. This breaks the rules of modern Beltway thinking, by which journalists must be in one or another camp and are judged by how enthusiastically they support us and denounce them.