The Common Ills: A lack of reasoning never silenced Jeffrey Toobin

Jeffrey Toobin is a disgrace to the law and to public discourse as well as to The New Yorker. And thank goodness for that. Thank goodness that his gross stupidity, his constant overreach and his preening ego are on public display so that no one ever mistakes him for insightful or wise no matter how many times he's fawned over by TV gas bags. His continued war on NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden is probably the pinnacle of a career that could be best titled My Long, Losing War On Common Sense. At The New Yorker this week, he offers:

The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy led directly to the passage of a historic law, the Gun Control Act of 1968. Does that change your view of the assassinations? Should we be grateful for the deaths of these two men?
Of course not. That’s lunatic logic. But the same reasoning is now being applied to the actions of Edward Snowden. Yes, the thinking goes, Snowden may have violated the law, but the outcome has been so worthwhile.

There you have it. A threatened Toobin yet again misunderstanding and hysterically raging against the thought process.

Kevin Gosztola (Firedoglake) reminded this week:

In journalist Michael Isikoff’s book, Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story, he described how Toobin was caught “having absconded with large loads of classified and grand-jury related documents from the office of Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh” in 1991:

Toobin, it turned out, had been using his tenure in Walsh’s office to secretly prepare a tell-all book about the Iran-contra case; the privileged documents, along with a meticulously kept private diary (in which the young Toobin, a sort of proto-Linda Tripp, had been documenting private conversations with his unsuspecting colleagues) were to become his prime bait to snare a book deal. Toobin’s conduct enraged his fellow lawyers in Walsh’s office, many of whom viewed his actions as an indefensible betrayal of the public trust. Walsh at one point even considered pressing for Toobin’s indictment.

Toobin was “petrified” that he would have to face criminal charges for stealing information for a rather dubious book deal. According to Isikoff, he either “feared dismissal and disgrace, or simply wanted to move on.” Toobin “resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn (where he had gone to work after Walsh) and abandoned the practice of law.”

Some might call Toobin a hypocrite. But maybe it's just modesty? In 2008, his latest round of cheating on his wife resulted in a pregnancy. Four years later, when the New York Times finally got around to seriously noting it, they carried the following:

As to continuing news media coverage of the matter, Mr. Toobin “feels that it’s not in Rory’s interest for this matter to be publicized,” Ms. Grant wrote. “He wishes Ms. Greenfield felt the same way.”

Rory, of course, is the son he fathered but refused to claim -- out of modesty, no doubt, not hypocrisy.

You have to wonder about CNN and The New Yorker, where Toobin is employed. Both outlets have worked themselves into a tizzy over 'sexting' and other scandals of real and imagined infidelity. So do they laugh every time Toobin walks out of the room?

Of course they do -- and why should they be any different from everyone else in the country?

He stole documents in an attempt to enrich himself. His tawdry affairs, long spoken of and mocked, resulted in an extra-marital pregnancy that he denied, then he refused to take a paternity test, and then he wanted to squirm out of paying the amount of child support that he more than owed. None of which has ever prompted an apology, let alone a tearful 'I have sinned' ego moment.

That he shows his face in public today is a testament to his gross stupidity, signaling that, as he applies make up before facing the CNN camera, he tells himself, "Jeffy, the world needs your opinion!"

No, it really doesn't.

Ryan Gallagher (Slate) noted yesterday:

For months, the Obama administration fought to prevent the release of details about unlawful NSA surveillance of Americans. But now it has finally caved—publishing a startling secret court opinion that slams the NSA for illegally obtaining thousands of domestic emails sent to and from people with no link to terrorism.

Prior to the leaks of secret documents by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the existence of the classified opinion had been revealed by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. This prompted rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation to pursue Freedom of Information Act litigation to obtain the opinion, which the Justice Department fought aggressively in the courts, as I reported here back in May. The DOJ argued that the release of the material would pose “exceptionally grave and serious damage” to national security.

Friday, August 23, 2013

A lack of reasoning never silenced Jeffrey Toobin