It's customary to introduce Glenn Greenwald as "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald," but considering his recent, enthusiastic plunge into ignominy, I can't help but feel that this description is rather misleading—it implies that he's still the reputable journalist he once was, and not the embittered Substack wraith he has transmogrified into, having melodramatically resigned from his former job at The Intercept when his editors tired of his partisan Hunter Biden conspiracy-mongering.
This week, Greenwald took a break from his appearances on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show to appear on Rising—a friendly venue where he can rest assured he won't face any difficult questions. The topic of the segment was ostensibly Belarus having deployed a fighter jet to force a Ryanair flight to the ground in order to arrest dissident journalist Roman Protasevich, who was onboard the plane. Only Greenwald, who fashions himself as a champion of press freedom, wasn't the slightest bit interested in Protasevich's plight. Instead, he used the occasion to decry U.S. "hypocrisy" in condemning Belarus when the U.S. itself had effectively forced a plane to the ground in 2013 in a failed attempt to arrest Edward Snowden.
I take an admiring view of Snowden, but I trust the reader to appreciate, without having to litigate the issue, the difference between him and Protasevich, a journalist in a client state of Russia that ranks 153rd in press freedom, who is reportedly being tortured in a Belarusian prison as I write these words. The U.S. is entirely right to condemn Belarus and demand the release of Protasevich, and it should be applauded for doing so regardless of the seeming double-standard vis'a'vis Edward Snowden.
But Greenwald is so embittered at the United States that he refuses to make common cause with it even when it stands up for the freedom of the press. As the family and colleagues of Roman Protasevich cry out for his release, Greenwald seeks to change the subject to U.S. hypocrisy from an episode that occurred two presidents and nearly a decade ago.
"This is about a geopolitical conflict for influence," Greenwald cynically declares, "It has nothing to do with human rights. Human rights or international law is the pretext being used for [the U.S.] going after a regime that it dislikes because they perceive [it] as being too close to the Kremlin." This is a delusionally jaded take on the situation (with which Rising co-host Saagar Enjeti meekly agrees.)
Watching Greenwald with furrowed brow, I couldn't help but think to myself, "This is whataboutism at its worst." Whataboutism—the practice of dismissing the bad behavior of one party by pointing to the bad behavior of another ("Yes, Protasevich. But what about Edward Snowden?"). It is a fallacy known as tu quoque ("you also"), or the "appeal to hypocrisy." No thoughtful person should be persuaded by it.
But Greenwald, for all his derangement, is self-aware enough to anticipate the charge of whataboutism. No sooner had the thought occurred to me did Greenwald hasten to say that "whataboutism [is] an incredibly powerful propagandistic term and shield that the United States government has convinced millions of its citizens to invoke to render that inquiry off-limits about what the United States does in the world as well."
"It's designed to prevent an inquiry into whether or not the United States government is abiding by the standards it is purporting to impose on others."
Does Greenwald seriously believe that now is the opportune time for an "inquiry" into an episode that occurred in 2013, that bears only a superficial resemblance to the forced landing of Protasevich's plane? Greenwald's whataboutism—for that's exactly what it is, no matter how he tries to dismiss it—has only the effect of diminishing U.S. moral authority at a moment of urgency for press freedom. Even if you believe, as Greenwald does, that the U.S. is acting from cynical motives, this is nonetheless an opportunity to use the immense power of the United States for good ends.
And for him to dismiss the term "whataboutism" as "propagandistic" when he is effectively propagandizing on behalf of Belarus is more than a little rich. As Stephen Fry noted in a recent podcast, there are countries that are objectively "interested in liberality" to greater or lesser degrees, and that Greenwald appears to see no meaningful difference in U.S. and Belarusian motives shows how blinded he has become by his hatred of the United States—an imperfect actor, to be sure, but clearly more "interested in liberality" than Belarus, which Reporters Without Borders describes as "the most dangerous country in Europe for media personnel."
To date, Greenwald has had little else to say about the plight of Roman Protasevich. Considering this, one can't help but doubt how "interested in liberality" Greenwald truly is.