TIME writer: I can't wait to write a defense of droning Assange

[green73]

TIME senior national correspondent, Michael Grunwald:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald

 

[presence]

bitterly denunciary

 

[AngryCanadian]

I believe thats a threat isn't it? sounds like the MSM pundits are running scared, of losing the debate on the drones.

 

[jclay2]

Someone should write a response article arguing for the Droning of Michael Grunwald (tongue and cheek of course).

 

[fr33]

He deleted it. He has chosen to be on the side that murders journalists. (that video wikileaks released)

 

[RickyJ]

I can't wait until Time fires him.

 

[better-dead-than-fed]

I have been blocked by Mike "Goebbels" Grunwald on Twitter for some time now.

 

[surf]

I can't wait until Time fires him.

you'd f#cking hope so.

what a evil miserable horrible prick piece-of-shit thing to even ponder you twtterfuck Michael

 

[better-dead-than-fed]

Here's Grunwald on Congress's rejection of proposed new gun restrictions a few months ago:

didn't we argue this during gun debate? media/public attention + lovely speeches didn't work.

https://twitter.com/MikeGrunwald/status/349852545692348418

Clarifying his position on Snowden and NSA:

To clarify: @ggreenwald shouldn't go to jail. Snowden should but I agree that his revelations are a bigger issue. They just don't bother me.

https://twitter.com/MikeGrunwald/status/348829928889933824

Assuring TIME readers, "Just About Everything Is Getting Better":

https://twitter.com/MikeGrunwald/status/347177554484011009

Suggesting that "if you are against the NSA spying program you want to make America less safe":

Tread on Me: The Case for Freedom From Terrorist Bombings, School Shootings and Exploding Factories

 

[kcchiefs6465]

I can't wait until Time fires him.

Joe Klein still works for them. CFR member who mused about using nuclear weapons against Iran and argued the point that whose four year old is getting killed is what matters (referring to drone strikes) on Morning Joe.

Seems he may have been outdone for who's the biggest piece of shit working for Time Magazine. He held the title for a while though.

 

[angelatc]

He's just pissed that he has never written a real story.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Authoritarian prick.

 

[Mani]

Apparently this guy likes to truth to be met with murder.

 

[AngryCanadian]

Well it seems his boss is pissed at his tweet and this author is even urging with his boss on the tweet, which he had posted.

 

[angelatc]

He was posted some of the retweets. One was "I can hardly wait to throat f*** your mother" which was followed by someone else writing "I can hardly wait to write a defense of the throat f***ing of your mother."

He retweeted those, because he thought it was funny. I thought the second one was funny, but the liberals were all fired up because he was mocking rape. What a messed up lot the human race is.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

Time magazine is one shitty operation. Take a look at their covers for the US, versus other parts of the world.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/...-Comparing-U-S-World-Covers-for-TIME-Magazine

I'm not sure about inside coverage, and this may be old news for some, but it's clearly some bullshit.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Apparently this guy likes to truth to be met with murder.

"If you are going to tell people the truth, you had better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you." - Oscar Wilde

 

[Occam's Banana]

Tom Woods comments ...

http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/establishment-journalist-favors-drone-strike-on-assange/

Establishment Journalist Favors Drone Strike on Assange

I first heard about this over at EconomicPolicyJournal.com, where this tweet (since deleted) by Geithner ghostwriter and Time magazine senior national correspondent Mike Grunwald was highlighted: [pic from OP]

Did Grunwald delete this out of remorse for how stupid and evil it is? Did he delete it because of the creepiness of someone in what is supposed to be the adversarial media cheering on the regime against its enemy? Did he delete it because he was embarrassed to have taken the position that we ought to be exploited and lied to by murdering sociopaths, and that the real crime is letting us know what our overlords — er, our public servants! — are up to?

This would be asking rather too much of a correspondent for Time magazine, whose job is to put a pretty face on the regime, its bailouts, its surveillance, its bubbles, and its wars.

Grunwald responds to critics by noting that it was a “dumb” tweet (I guess advocating murder is “dumb,” like thinking the square root of 144 is 15), and won’t they please leave him alone already?

But here’s why he took it down. Another commentator of the please-loot-exploit-and-lie-to-me-with-impunity-and-in-return-I’ll-demonize-and-shout-down-all-your-enemies-nice-government-man-sir school offered this warning:

Michael Grunwald ✔ @MikeGrunwald

Fair point. I'll delete. @rober1236Jua my main problem with this is it gives Assange supporters a nice safe persecution complex to hide in

6:54 PM - 17 Aug 2013

 

[presence]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/19/loving-the-drone-disease/

August 19, 2013
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Grunwald, Assange and Assassination
[h=1]Loving the Drone Disease[/h] by BINOY KAMPMARK

“I can’t wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange”​

Michael Grunwald, Twitter, Aug 17, 2013​

He regrets having tweeted it on Saturday. According to TIME Magazine, Michael Grunwald’s endorsement of assassinating WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange via a drone strike was “offensive.” While Twitter is a notorious medium of unreliable guff, its spontaneity, its allowance for rawness, can be a window on the mind. The mind here was particularly disturbed, and disturbing.​

What Grunwald, senior national correspondent for TIME has been doing is glossing the language of murder with “statist” hygiene, showing in turn a fascination for pro-establishment rhetoric. In other words, killing Assange would be, in the manner of killing Anwar al-Awlaki, a matter of state endorsement for the broader good. Not palatable but generally acceptable; goodness, even legal, something that could be “justified.” Yes, a few eggs are broken to make a bloody omelette, but (and no doubt Grunwald’s anticipation strikes fever pitch at this point) some things must be done.​

Drone strikes are palliatives. They are deemed to be surgical applications used by democratic states to punish those with conflicting standards. The civilisational prerogative is thereby upheld – to retain one’s values, a touch of shedding may be required from time to time. One is patriotic embracing the latest effective killing machine. To do so otherwise would be treasonous.
Indeed, the general culture of extra judicial killing that graces the U.S. security establishment leads to the happy hurrahs that come from those like Grunwald. The standard in terms of targeting American citizens has already been lowered; the standard regarding non-Americans such as Assange has plummeted even further.
Grunwald’s initial effort at apologia was one of simple deletion of the comment. “Fair point. I’ll delete,” he responded to an indignant respondent. But another sentiment was at play as well. “[M]y main problem with this is that it gives Assange supporters a nice safe persecution complex to hide in.”
It is hard to see what on this unfortunate planet Grunwald is on about, when this “persecution complex” envelopes and plumes like noxious clouds over the entire publishing industry. Journalists are the obvious target of the state, and his amoral fumbling in the dark may be a symptom of how successful the establishment has been in convincing some that Assange is to be disposed off by any means necessary. Besides, that dispatch might well be “justified”.
The type of device helps too. Too much fuss, claim the pro-drone experts, is being made about the slippery slope of legality and their incessant deployment. In February 2012, Alex Seitz-Wald observed in Salon that even liberal elites with a habitual love affair with liberties were losing the battle against the Democratic base which was “simply” not with them in terms of condemning the use of drones. Indeed, polling data “shows that Americans really love their flying autonomous death robots.”
Peter Mehlman, writing for The Huffington Post (Sep 28, 2012) was even more descriptive about this insidious love affair, one that corrodes the participants. “If there’s a hawk in the marrow of every liberal, drones have become the above-the-line escape hatch, a place to valet park our conscience and finally let us enjoy a bit of American muscle.”
Broadly speaking, the position by Grunwald has proven estranging to other journalists. This was particularly the case for Amy Davidson writing in The New Yorker (Aug 18): “It was troubling, too, to read Grunwald’s tweet on the day when journalists were being threatened detained and set upon in Cairo, accused of being terrorist sympathisers or spies, underminers of public safety, for reporting on the violence of the government’s assault on the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Even as Grunwald was entertaining dreams of death by robot, Glen Greenwald of The Guardian was greeted with news that his partner David Miranda was in a pickle with Heathrow authorities in London. He was being questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. With such assaults on the journalistic code, the extra-legal fantasies of the drone dreamers are becoming all too real. Who, indeed, will be on that list?
Grenwald’s own reaction to the blood embracing comment by Grunwald was unsurprising. “Thing like this make you not just understand, but celebrate, the failings of large media outlets.”
Exposure comes at a price. The journalistic creed, when abided by, may only be as valuable as the fury it inspires. Attitudes such as those by TIME’s senior national correspondent suggest an almost collaborative attitude with the press officer’s brief. Government has been given a huge leg over. Grunwald’s record justifying the use of such killing methods is official and pressing.
A few suggestions regarding the cyber spread gaffe. Boycott the magazine. Sack Grunwald, or at the very least, regard his material on WikiLeaks and Assange from now on as suspect. But Grunwald’s careless fingers are merely the symptom of a broader, intractable disease. The drone culture, with its magical propensities to undermine legality, has shown itself to be attractive and overwhelming. Oh, and justifiable.