The Definitive Glenn Greenwald Takedown

It's not as comprehensive as Christopher Badeaux's definitive takedown of Andrew Sullivan last year, but Benjamin Kerstein's epic deconstruction of the Gleen Greenwald monstrosity is classic. (Or as Mike at Cold Fury notes, "it’s as good a takedown of this malignant swine I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few.") At New Ledger, "The Paper Greenwald" (via Instapundit):

Needless to say, RTWT. Kerstein opens his essay with a sense of astonishment:

The fallout from the Gaza flotilla incident has occasioned some of the most reprehensible writing that the anti-Israel establishment – which specializes in such things – has ever produced. Beyond question, however, one of the most egregious examples of this is the work Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald, whose comically overwrought pseudo-jeremiads on the subject constitute a case study in the kind of intellectual corruption that now appears to be the inevitable result of the bigoted hatred of Israel typical of today’s American progressivism.

This passage is pretty good too, almost at the conclusion:

His lies, slanders, and apologetics for political evil are not excusable, but it is impossible not to feel some measure of pity for Glenn Greenwald. He seems to be a man torn between those aspects of himself that are acceptable to the progressive faith, i.e., his politics and his homosexuality, and those that are anathema, i.e. that he is a Jew and an American. Loyal to progressivism because of the former, he must constantly prove himself worthy of belonging to it because of the latter. As a result, he is always on trial, both before his comrades and before himself. And he required to regularly debase himself on certain subjects by going above and beyond his fellows in both the violence of his denunciations and the intensity of his hysteria, even when the results are humiliating and reveal him as a moral and intellectual bankrupt. Saddest of all, the trial never ends, and the verdict is always known beforehand.

Ultimately, however, sympathy can only go so far. Whatever his secret motivations and terrors may be, Greenwald has long since made his deal with the devil, and what it has brought him to is a testament to just how morally and intellectually corrupted progressives are capable of becoming when they follow the tenets of their creed to the very bitter end ...

Yes, bitter alright. A definitely evil.

Again, be sure to click through to the essay. Especially good is the construction of Greenwald's placement in Satan's gallery of historical accomplices, but be sure understand the nature and implications of this "paper Greenwald."

RELATED: There's a pretty good reaction to Kerstein's essay around the 'spher. See, Cold Fury, Jamie Kirchick, The Jawa Report, John Noonan, Josh Trevino, Martin Kramer, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, and Wake up America.

And Greenwald has responded as well, in an update to a post on CNN's Middle Eastern Affairs/Hezbollah editor, Octavia Nasr. Greenwald lashes out at Kerstein as "a standard-issue, Israel-devoted neocon smear artist," and thus confirms the former's argument perfectly. And here's a added dose of Greenwald's self-superior infallibility:

I view the increasingly unhinged attacks by the worst neocon elements to be a vindication of what I'm doing. I see them as pernicious and destructive, and genuinely welcome their contempt.

Fail.