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Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals
John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania. Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.
It's time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.
Black Jesus loves a paper trail.
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
Infrastructure week. at last.
The willow is too close to the house.
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.
They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Taibbi Responds To Time
Taibbi Responds To Time
by John Cole | July 9, 2009 10:30 pm | 63 Comments
This post is in: Excellent Links
Pour yourself a drink and savor this one:
Then there is this other argument, the one being bandied about by Time magazine, among others. According to Steven Gandel of Time, the problem with my piece is that it is — get this — too specific. According to the above passage, focusing on Goldman in particular when attempting to explain (in general) the crimes of Wall Street to ordinary readers is somehow a distraction from the "real problem." To repeat:
…spend too much time on Goldman and you miss the fact of how broadly the financial system and the regulations that are supposed to keep profiteers in check failed us.
I had to read that passage several times to even begin to grasp its ostensible meaning.
Two, even if it is true that "everyone else was doing it": so what? Who cares? To me this response is highly telling. We published a piece accusing Goldman Sachs of systematically ripping off pensioners and other retail investors by sticking them with rafts of toxic mortgages it knew were losers, of looting taxpayer reserves to cover its bad bets made with AIG, of manipulating gas prices to massive detrimental effect, of helping to explode an internet bubble that caused over $5 trillion in wealth to disappear, and numerous other crimes — and the response isn't "You're wrong," or "We didn't do that shit, not us," but "Well, Morgan did the same stuff," and "Why aren't you writing about Morgan?"
Why didn't we write about Morgan? Because we didn't. Because it's your turn, you assholes.
I wish he posted every day.
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SGEW
We wouldn't be able to handle it.
Taibblog is mighty, and can only be taken in discreet installments.
Comrade Stuck
They should put this on every dollar bill, for the sake of posterity and a daily reminder as well/
BDeevDad
From your keyboard to the FSM's noodly appendages.
kommrade reproductive vigor
That's too much awesome for this hour of the night.
Shorter Gandel: Stop it! Stop doing the job we're too lazy to do!
Oh and as a Jew, right on.
For Goldman now to hide behind the cloak of Jewish victimhood is both more obnoxious and less convincing than Marion Barry wearing a dashiki after the indictment.
Yes, Taibbi has a wonderful way with language – a crassness that is both sublime and shockingly powerful. However, the summation to this post:
[W]hat they didn't say about this piece is that it was wrong. They didn't deny any of it. They said others were just as bad, they said I was a bad guy, they said it was a conspiracy theory. But they didn't say it was mistaken, and that's the only thing that matters.
. . . is why Taibbi is important.
Just Some Fuckhead
Can I just say bullshit accusations of anti-semitism really make hate Jews? Is that anti-semitic of me?
The criticism from Time is ironic given the fact that they just published a cotton candy puff piece on Palin, which approvingly cites dirtbag Glenn Beck.
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2009/07/time-goes-gaga-for-palin.html
I wish Taibbi had a column in the New York Times or Washington Post or had a regular spot on the roundtable panel for Meet the Press or This Week.
@JK: If only. Sadly, his lack of bullshit would send probably send Respectable, Serious People into dead faints all across the Beltway, and we certainly can't have that.
parksideq
I need a cigarette after that one. And to think that I used to love TIME magazine back when I was in high school; how the mighty have fallen.
The Grand Panjandrum
@BDeevDad: That was my favorite.
If anyone ever asks me who are the three people I most want to get drunk with I would say Hunter Thompson, Molly Ivins and Matt Taibbi. I don't think I need to explain why to this crowd of commenters.
@Crashman06:
Sadly, Bill Kristol will get re-hired by the NY Times before they ever consider bringing Taibbi aboard. That is, if WaPo can stop stroking Kristol's wang ego long enough to let him leave.
Some dude
Matt Taibbi's the Upton Sinclair of these fucked up times. His old shit for the Buffalo Beast cracked me up.
@JK:
I wish Taibbi . . . had a regular spot on the roundtable panel for Meet the Press or This Week.
You really think they'll let this guy actually talk to Republicans? Face to face? On television?
[Taibbi on Michelle "Glue Huffer" Bachmann: "You need to pass a written test to drive a car in this country, but I bet this woman can't even write her name in the ground with a stick."]
I'd love to see it, but it'll never happen.
Sadly, his lack of bullshit would send probably send Respectable, Serious People into dead faints all across the Beltway, and we certainly can't have that.
Broder would develop carpal tunnel syndrome from all the pearl-clutching.
JGabriel
@The Grand Panjandrum:
If anyone ever asks me who are the three people I most want to get drunk with I would say Hunter Thompson, Molly Ivins and Matt Taibbi.
Add I.F. Stone, and you've got the progressive version of that painting of the dogs playing poker.
@Crashman06: @parksideq:
At least Bill Maher occasionally has Taibbi on Real Time.
steve s
Love Thompson, Ivins, and Taibbi. Stone was too much of a dumb communist tool for me to ever support him.
Deleted by Author due to duplication.
DaBomb
@JK: Isn't that the same piece about Palin blaming someone who's on Obama's staff for issuing various ethic complaints against her? Many of the commenters on that article ripped the reporter a new one.
He completely didn't challenge Palin at all on her accusations.
@The Grand Panjandrum: I loved Molly Ivins. She was fantastic.
@SGEW: LMAO!!
@JGabriel:
Also throw in George Seldes, Seymour Hersh, John Hess, Andrew Kopkind, Wayne Barrett, Sidney Schanberg, Jack Newfield, Walter Karp, Jonathan Kwitney, Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Murray Waas, Lars Erik Nelson, Murray Kempton, Donald Barlett, and James Steele and you have a good alternative to the current Washington Press Corps.
@DaBomb:
I think it's the same article though I'm not 100% positive.
The Washington Press Corps has basically been neutered with respect to Palin coverage because to challenge her on any of the bullshit statements she makes runs the risk of being tagged a sexist.
angulimala
Taibbi kicks ass
arguingwithsignposts
I was just on an economics blog reading an interview they did with Taibbi (can't find the link – too much surfing today) and he had a fascinating tale – lived in Russia for 10 years, ran his own hippie newspaper, played in the Mongolian Basketball Association for a year, and came back to the US to work for RS after RS had written about his newspaper gig in Russia.
He also said he read HST rather late, after he'd developed his writing style.
williamc
@Just Some Fuckhead
…I think I just crapped my pants man, and I think hating jews who falsely play the anti-semite doesn't make you an anti-semite, but it does make you a muslim-libtard!
ha!ha!
…and whoever linked to the Taibbi on Hardball video back there, I know a 25yo who is a little slow, and CAN'T write his name in the dirt with a stick, and he even laughs at Bachmann (I showed him her comic)…
I didn't cry at my grandma's funeral, but I wailed half the day when I heard about Molly Ivins passing, she was like a grandmother, 1 that I could actually stand listening to…
Taibbi, keep poking the poo stick at these banksters!
I call this a 'Zakaria'. We can't blame any specific person or organization, because that would upset the dinner-club comity between the establishment media and the powerful establishment. No, we must spread the blame so widely that it becomes a hazy, transparent film, and who can really say where it falls and doesn't fall? Isn't the whole problem really society's fault? Doesn't the fault really lie in the hearts of all of us and our desire for financial success?
Hells, yeah! That would be a great night.
Taibbi on a Sunday show would be right up there with Jon Stewart on Crossfire. He'd point out the obvious, that the Emperors have no clothes. The world would never be the same.
@SGEW:
Yes, Taibbi has a wonderful way with language – a crassness that is both sublime and shockingly powerful. However, the summation to this post is why Taibbi is important.
I totally agree. I guess the only thing left is for the serious media to suggest that a rag like Rolling Stone could never adequately cover anything so … complicated … as the financial markets.
You know, it's like how the Daily Show should never have taken on Jim Cramer. It's just not done. There are hierarchies that must be respected, ceremonies that must be observed.
Maybe a White House correspondent can ask Obama a serious question about Goldman Sachs.
ninerdave
I just had a starbursts. I'm pretty sure Taibbi was winking at me.
The Serious Media
Given the litany of missed stories over the years, The Serious Media has forfeited the right to use that term to describe itself.
When NYT reporter Jeff Zeleny asks Obama what has enchanted him most about his time in the White House, it's time for Zeleny to take off his busuness suit and change into a clown suit. When CBS Evening News reporter Dean Reynolds whines like a crybaby about the cramped space and musty smell of Obama's campaign plane he needs to take a hike.
My favorite line is:
"even a hardened atheist like myself comes away … shocked by [the banking] community's complete and utter Godlessness and moral insanity."
BTW I have seen Taibbi on at least one TV news pundit roundtable. The usual pundit suspects were not in attendance. They had other actual real reporters, as I remember. I remember the table being somewhat sparsely surrounded, probably had a few refusals.
Redhand
I went out and bought the full version of Taibbi's piece in the print issue. It makes you wanna kill, but it's great writing and muckraking.
The MSM are such whores for the establishment. Why am I not surprised at Time's facile tut-tutting? Assholes, indeed.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
'scuse mah French but
Leave a mark?! Holee Shit, Taibbi blew a fucking hole through Gandel's head.
Bet it missed his brain, which is obviously MIA.
@ninerdave:
Hell, I just had a thrill run up my leg, bounce off my skull and induce sparkles! Damn that was a great smackdown.
El Cruzado
I find it surprising how lame the arguments are that were deployed against Taibbi's piece, especially considering who it offended.
Also needs to be said "but the Police didn't stop me from doing it" won't save me, it won't save you and it sure shouldn't save Goldman Sachs.
@jl:
You're lucky to have caught Taibbi on a tv pundit show. Outside of Bill Maher's Real Time, the only MSM news show I've seen Taibbi appear on is Hardball.
Taibbi and his crew are often on "Stand Up" on POTUS Sirius XM. They were on for like 2 hours today. It was very good.
I love satellite radio. I haven't listened to local radio for like 5 years. Sirius now has an Iphone ap, so you can listen and go.
@JK: That might have been awhile ago. His eruptions were more acceptable when he was blasting the political campaign consultant complex, and have become less so since he started working a beat that is a tad touchy for the oligopolistic corporate media.
I cannot imagine who would appear with him now. Maybe Krugman, Stiglitz or Galbraith, or maybe Greider, or some other financial beat reporters doing real work, and who would not be considered big name enough to be worthy of a roundtable.
The Other Steve
That's funny. I love the directness, the lack of apologies…
This is the kind of writing we need more of in this day and age.
(one person also hinted that the use of a squid image was somehow anti-Semitic, but I was not entirely clear what was being referred to there).
Yup, this here is pure wingnut.
TheFountainHead
Well that made my night in a way that printed text rarely does.
'Tisn't. It's a reference to the trope of depicting the international jewish conspiracy as an octopus straddling the world in anti-semitic cartoons. (Not saying it isn't as ridiculous as pointing to "tribe" in the desperate search for something bad to say about the piece.)
@Cyan:
LOL. Reckon I'm a little sheltered when it comes to the nitty gritty on anti-semitism. Maybe you ought to let Taibbi in on the observation, as he didn't seem to get it either.
Grace Nearing
Heidi Moore, a former reporter at the Wall Street Journal who used to cover Goldman and other investment banks for the paper, wrote in response to another journalist's question about the piece, "For the record, I don't think any article that contains the line 'vampire squid sucking the face of humanity' [Taibbi's opening description of Goldman] is real journalism."
You can tell that Heidi's "a real journalist" because (1) she used the phrase for the record and (2) she hates metaphors.
@Grace Nearing:
Hmmph! She's never been on the cover of The Rolling Stone
"Mr. President! Mr. President! Why doesn't Matt Taibbi wear a flag pin???"
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
The response from Time is stupid, but Tabbi's article really is bad. It's shallow, uninformative, not well thought out, and basically just a chance to say rude things.
Let's start with the screed about how there's a Goldman conspiracy based upon all the people in positions of power who have ties to the firm. I'm tired of this one, because no one has put any analysis into it. The biggest reason why everyone in the Treasury and the Fed, in every administration, seems to have connections to Goldman Sachs is because it would be, literally, impossible for them not to. This is particularly true if you are going to include people like Geithner and Summers, who have never actually worked for them, but simply have had close friends and bosses who did.
The finance industry is incestuous to begin with. People move around so often that they have most of the companies on the Street somewhere on their resume. At the top, this is particularly true of Goldman, because they've been the most successful house for a long time; people have the cause and effect at least partially reversed. Goldman doesn't make so much fucking money because it's well connected; it's so well connected because it's made so much fucking money, and everyone wants to hire anyone who has been associated with them. If you are going to hire anyone at the top of a Wall Street firm to a political position, I'm 95 delta that they're going to have GS connections. Once you do that, you ensure that everyone who hasn't actually worked on the Street, such as Geithner and Summers, are going to all of a sudden have "close ties" to Goldman.
I repeat: it is absolutely impossible to staff Treasury and the Fed without being able to claim that it's nothing but a tool of GS, based upon who is employed there. By the standards used, Paul Krugman certainly wouldn't lessen it. Any article that makes a major point of these ties without realizing this is amateurish.
Another problem with the article is that there is a case to be made that everyone was doing it, and that ignoring this is a major problem. It isn't the claim that Time made, because all they did was cite other investment banks that did pretty much the same thing that Goldman did. That's pretty unenlightening, because the investment banks couldn't have done it without a help of help from other players. The mortgage originators were, if anything, more culpable. Michael Lewis' article, cited here a couple of days ago, points out that, without someone playing the role AIG did, the bubble couldn't have grown like it did.I really do think that rants like Taibbi's make the problem seem much simpler than it really is.
Lastly, I think that the accusation of anti-semitism on Taibbi's part is insulting and wrong-headed, but it isn't entirely without substance. I don't think Taibbi aimed at them with any sort of thought of targeting the Jews, but I also think that making the Wall Street investment banks the main targets is not only wrong, but has its origins in old anti-Semitic attacks on bankers. That is the history of how they ended up at the top of the list to get blamed, even though I don't think that they stand out at the top of the list of the most obviously culpable.
asiangrrlMN
Oh.Mah.Gah. Mr. Taibbi, may I be the mother of your babies, please?
That was utterly brilliant, especially the conclusion. Kudos to you, Mr. Taibbi.
I posted something, and it didn't appear, even saying it's in moderation. I tried posting again, and the system tells me I already posted it, and it won't do so again. So, I'm seeing if this new first paragraph fools it.
Uhm, any reason my posts aren't showing up? Do you really hate me that much? So much that you tell me I've already posted something that hasn't actually been posted?
Gah. I've got a long post, pointing out that Taibbi's article really is pretty bad. Apparently, though, that goes against the groupthink, and so I can't post it.
And then it finally shows up.
@JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker: Twice now. Thanks!
Richard Stanczak
JMN, You repeat the nonsense that others were involved/did sort of the same thing so its not 'fair' to focus on Goldman Sachs.
I did not realize that was a valid defence/rationalization for immoral or illegal or unethical behaviour.
Shorter GS: "Jeez Mom, all the other kids did it too."
But fortunately your legal system is too busy with illegal aliens, Afghan taxi drivers, and pot smoking hippies to concern itself with multi billion dollar criminal conspiracies that occurred in the distant past.
@Richard Stanczak: hey! you left out celebrity bad acts.
i swear, what is this country coming to. who needs all this finance stuff; my neighbor paid less for a big screen tv!
Throwin Stones
@arguingwithsignposts:
I read that interview, too. It's worth a look. I {heart} me some Taibbi.
You're so right, targeting bankers has nothing to do with y'know, the millions of people now out of work and out of money because of the bullshit they pulled. It's because of some old fashioned stereotype about bankers that no one is even aware of anymore. Poor them, they are so put upon, how will they ever sleep at night?
Oh I know, they will sleep on PILES OF MONEY.
Oddly enough, I can't find in what I wrote any comment on what is fair to Goldman Sachs one way or the other. Whenever you decide to stop reacting mindlessly, let me know. Understanding that Goldman is a hive of scum and villainy only gets you so far. It might also be worthwhile understanding what actually happens.
The problem with Taibbi's article isn't that he targets Goldman. I'm all for that. The problem is that he does so with no insight, no attempt to understand what actually happened, or just how Goldman ended up with all the money. He'd rather score cheap laughs and preen about. Which makes him a lot like a lot of the people around here.
So are you saying that Taibbi's assertions about Goldman Sachs are wrong? Or are you just saying you don't like that he preened about and scored cheap laughs while making the assertion?
Look, I get what your saying about the problem being complicated and Goldman being only part of the problem. But I think an important point about complex systems like this is that lay people, like me, and Taibbi and Rolling Stone readers, can't always address the whole problem at one time. So here he is focusing on PART of the issue, not the whole issue. And I think that is reasonable, especially considering the mortgage banks and AIG have already been hammered and Goldman Sachs is raking it in. If we're going to target part of a system that caused a problem, I think it is reasonable to target the part that hasn't already been addressed to some degree. Don't you?
Generalizations from JMN. How do you know Matt Taibbi doesn't understand what went on at GS? You spouted about 1000 words without explaining your premise, and we are supposed to just take you at your word?
If you hate the proles here so much, take your preachy, holier than thou ass somewhere else. You have the foul stench of Joe Lieberman on you.
JMN, The point you keep making regarding the culpability of other institutions is irrelevant to the behaviour of Goldman Sachs. I think Taibbi gets it right here that it is their turn.
Should the other institutions who behaved this way be outed too? Of course they should. Should the regulatory and rating agencies be called on their failures in this fiasco too. Definitely yes.
I am not sure what level of technical detail that you think Taibbi or any other writer who investigates and reports on this needs to get to to explain this to a largely ignorant [I am speaking for myself here] public, without totally boring or losing them in the process.
The key charges in his article of Goldman Sachs using their reputation and high profile to systematically foist worthless investments on other investors, then taking taxpayer money to cover their gambles is unanswered.
Perhaps it does not need to be answered except with a shrug of the shoulders and a simple "That's the way it works here".
@Throwin Stones:
The guy interviewing Taibbi is a total douche.
Damien: I consider you one of the most interesting writers at Rolling Stone since Hunter S. [Thompson]. Did he have any influence on you as a writer?
My favorite part is the way he has brackets around "Thompson".
Damien: Most people think working at Rolling Stone would be like living the movie Almost Famous. Is that accurate?
"I'm 15!"
Damien: In the 60's and 70's, politics and rock music were inseparable. So, Rolling Stone was a perfect vehicle for educating the masses. Your political and financial reporting is top of the line. Do you feel like it's reaching your target audience?
Did that tool just say "educating the masses?"
And his exercise in pseudo-intellectual dickery reaches its crescendo with this statement:
Damien: So are we living in a Catch-22 where we have to choose between the Goldman Leviathan sucking the world's wealth from loopholes or the omniscient eye at the top of the governmental pyramid which becomes the one crown reigning over us all?
I also love the bitchy, hissy fit responses to his commenters.
Janus Daniels
This sounds familiar…
"The biggest reason why everyone in the Treasury and the Fed, in every administration, seems to have connections to Goldman Sachs is because it would be, literally, impossible for them not to."
The biggest reason why everyone in on the reconstruction\occupation of Iraq seems to have connections to Halliburton\Carlisle\Blackwater is because it would be, literally, impossible for them not to….
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132×979945
Weird that anyone believes this the first time, and the first time was probably on stone tablets; now it's MadLibs.
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