Greenwald was wrong. There is no James appointment....

[SidDithers]

The White House, however, now tells a much different story. In an email to me from the First Lady’s Communications Director, the White House claims:

Several members of the White House staff are convening a meeting with multiple mental health professionals on Tuesday to discuss issues pertaining to the wellness of military families. SAMHSA and the American Psychological Association have both been asked to attend. We understand that Dr. James is involved with these groups and may have been indirectly invited to attend this meeting.

She claims, however, that he now will not be at that meeting, and further states that "Dr. James has not been appointed to serve in any capacity with the White House."

Greenwald has posted an update/correction to his earlier story. Perhaps he should get confirmation before posting next time.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/25/james/index.html

Sid

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. His righteousness..

....is sufficiently high that his accuracy can go pretty low and still have it come out even, apparently.

[villager]

2. Wish more media, and politicians, would be this forthcoming when they get it wrong the first time

n/t

[SidDithers]

3. Agreed. And Duer's too...nt

Sid

[villager]

5. Exactly so, Sid -- DUers too!

They could take a cue from Greenwald on this! :thumbsup:

[madfloridian]

4. He also posted the letter from Dr. James.

So did the doctor just make it up?

[geek tragedy]

6. No one from the Bush administration EVER lied to make

themselves look better.

That seriously never happened.

:sarcasm:

[dsc]

7. funny how the self appointed journalism police

leave that out.

[EFerrari]

8. No, he wasn't wrong. He reported the email that went out.

And when he got an update, he posted it.

[SidDithers]

10. His posting was more than just a report of the email...

he also included his opinion about the appointment, without questioning whether the appointment actually happened.

Sid

[LoZoccolo]

15. Good, professional journalists independently confirm with another source.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[glinda]

11. This sounds oddly like the attacks upon Wikileaks. Discredit, make sources unreliable, etc...

ON Wikileaks homepage, halfway down, there is a list of attack methods that were gleaned from BOA hires to bring Greenwald and Wikileaks down.
Could this be related somehow?

[Luminous Animal]

12. The International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard has the original email.

If anything, if it is revealed that Dr. James is lying, it will further tarnish his reputation. (Which, despite the pro-torture allegations, is pretty good.)

[hulka38]

28. Why would someone want to tarnish his own reputation?

[LoZoccolo]

31. He's not a journalist; he's a professional leftist.

He doesn't have to uphold a journalist's reputation.

[hulka38]

34. Try to follow a simple conversation n/t

[LoZoccolo]

36. That was my imitation of Glenn Greenwald.

[LoZoccolo]

26. It also sounds oddly like what you do when the source is actually unreliable.

[northernlights]

13. his earlier story was that he'd received an email

that was true. It is not his fault that the contents of the email from Dr. James were wrong.

Now he has updated to state he's received another email contracting the first email.

Unrecced for blaming the middleman instead of Dr. James, who circulated the false claim.

[tammywammy]

18. Why didn't he contact the WH before publishing the article?

He assumed the email was factual without any confirmation.

[walldude]

29. First of all he printed the e-mail directly from Dr James

Are you saying he should have assumed that this Dr was lying about a White House appointment that could easily be disproved?


Second where are all the anti- Dr James threads? From all the info we have right now it's he that lied. Or the White House and I know you don't think they lied.. so where are your diatribes against James?

[tammywammy]

32. I would think that receiving confirmation about WH appointments from the WH would be SOP.

I would assume again that no one would believe Dr Torture has the utmost ethical qualities, so yeah I can see him inflating what happened into a WH appointment to fluff himself up.

[SidDithers]

33. No, I'm saying that he made a sensational accusation against the White House...

without asking the White House for confirmation. He didn't print that "calls to the White House have not been returned", or "The White House confirms this story", or "The White House had no comment on this story".

He simply printed a claim without making any effort to determine the truth of the claim. Perhaps he's too wrapped up in the Obama = Bush narrative to be objective.

Sid

[northernlights]

35. he stated right up front that James was circulating an email

that was the story.

His headline was misleading in that it assumed the email was factual. The article itself was neither misleading nor unfactual. The article was the Dr. James is a modern-day mengele and that he was circulating an email about an appointment.

Opinion blogs are not the same thing as articles. They are day-by-day, hour-by-hour events. Period.

Anybody who expects them to be anything else is deluding themselves.

[LoZoccolo]

38. Does he know that it was Dr. James?

[northernlights]

47. according to the blog post...

"On its own website, HLS’s Human Rights Program reported that James sent this email "to colleagues and students of Wright State University, where Dr. James serves as Dean of the School of Professional Psychology.”"

Greenwald was not the only one to receive the email notice.

[LoZoccolo]

48. So?

[northernlights]

50. you asked if the email came from Dr. James

by all appearances it did. Seriously :wtf:

[sabrina 1]

58. You mean did Larry James send an email to his students

and the staff of his university in Ohio and they did not check if it was a member of their own faculty who sent it?

And then, did the Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program republish that same email again without checking if it actually came from Larry James?

By the time it got to Glenn Greenwald there were dozens of people who neglected to determine if it was actually from Larry James.

I think that if two reputable institutions determined that it was from Dr. James, and James himself did not deny it, and the WH admitted they had invited him to the meeting, that Greenwald could have concluded that it actually was James.

[tammywammy]

41. The headline was sensationally misleading. n/t

[northernlights]

46. not really, considering the email source nt

[tammywammy]

51. IHRC even said that Dr James "claims" in their headline

http://harvardhumanrights.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/former-guantanamo-psychologist-named-to-white-house-task-force-on-enhancing-the-psychological-well-being-of-the-military-family/

[northernlights]

54. so? they also confirm that Dr. James sent the email nt

[tammywammy]

56. And GG took "claims" as proof in his headline

See the difference:
Former Guantanamo Psychologist Claims to be Named to White House Task Force on “Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of The Military Family”

Top Bush-era GITMO and Abu Ghraib psychologist is WH's newest appointment

[walldude]

14. So even though at the link you posted, Greenwald posted

the e-mail he received directly from Dr James saying he was just handed a position in the White House it's Greenwald's fault for believing him? The man sent out a fucking e-mail saying the White House just hired him.

Tell me again how Greenwald should have gotten confirmation. I mean it was only an e-mail from Dr James himself that Greenwald got his position from.

Where is your thread about what an asshole James is for "lying" in his press release? If that's what happened. More likely the WH got wind of the anger the people were displaying when they hired Dr Mengele and did a fucking 180.

[SidDithers]

25. Greenwald should have got confirmation from the WH...

that James had been appointed by the WH to a WH task force. Is that too much to ask?

:shrug:

Sid

[MilesColtrane]

44. "(Is it) Greenwald's fault for believing him"

Reporters used to have a saying, "if your mother says she loves you, check it out."

[Zorra]

16. Thanks. Phew. That's really great news. nt

[LoZoccolo]

17. Let's send Glenn Greenwald a bunch of emails and see if he reports every one.

[Forkboy]

22. I doubt he'll report on an email that says "dooga dooga dooga".

You can try though, I could be wrong. Maybe he can further advance your message throughout the land? :shrug:

[walldude]

27. I bet if you claim you got hired by the White House

after playing Dr Mengele for a few years he'd print it. Tell me again who it is who is lying here? Is it Greenwald? Dr James? The White House? You?

[LoZoccolo]

30. Especially if I sent it from an address like [e-mail].

[northernlights]

55. right. because an email from, say, LoZoccolo, is going to have the same import and credibility

as an email from a retired Colonel and university dean. :eyes:

[LoZoccolo]

57. Let's see if he checks Snopes first.

[JoePhilly]

19. The outrage machine is now kicking itself ...

:rofl:

[tammywammy]

20. I'm sure some will never admit their initial knee jerk was wrong. n/t

[JoePhilly]

39. Its better than that, they are complaining because we are laughing about the knee jerk.

[gratuitous]

21. I wonder if Greenwald got it right, then got it wrong

Ben Bradlee was right when he said LBJ wasn't going to re-appoint Hoover as head of the FBI. When word got back to LBJ that the Post was preparing a story to that effect, LBJ announced publicly that he was re-appointing Hoover. LBJ mentioned privately, "Fuck you, Ben Bradlee." Bradlee was right, but presidential prerogative allows for a pivot on a dime.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Matariki]

24. This is a big relief. Thanks for posting the correction. n/t

[Vattel]

37. I'm surprised he didn't request a response from the whitehouse

before posting about this. It was indeed an error, but Greenwald remains, IMHO, one of the few journalists worth reading these days.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mythology]

42. Well that's awkward.

Unless of course you're willing to twist yourself to pretend that Greenwald didn't screw up massively to the point that it's hard to take him seriously if he can't be bothered to do the slightest bit of research.

[SpartanDem]

43. Greenwald is a joke

he was such in rush to bash Obama that he could be bothered to factcheck.

[Bobbie Jo]

49. +1

[iwishiwas]

45. As I read it, Dr James thought he was invited along with the group-but

it was premature.

[JNelson6563]

52. lolz

Busy day for the unrec crew I see.

[SpartanDem]

53. very busy