A lot of people didn’t really like Michael Kinsley’s harsh review of journalist Glenn Greenwald’s new book, including an editor for the newspaper that published it.
New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote Tuesday that Kinsley’s review of “No Place to Hide,” Greenwald’s recently released book on the National Security Agency revelations, fell short.
Writing for the New York Times Book Review, Kinsley levied personal insults at Greenwald and wondered whether the newly crowned Pulitzer Prize winner might deserve to be locked up for his reporting of the agency’s surveillance programs.
Greenwald fired back at both Kinsley and the journalists who spoke favorably of the review. Sullivan was not one of them.
“Here’s my take: Book reviews are opinion pieces and — thanks to the principles of the First Amendment — Mr. Kinsley is certainly entitled to freely air his views,” she wrote. “But there’s a lot about this piece that is unworthy of the Book Review’s high standards, the sneering tone about Mr. Greenwald, for example; he is called a ‘go-between’ instead of a journalist and is described as a ‘self-righteous sourpuss.’ (I’ve never met Mr. Greenwald, though I’ve written about his work, as Mr. Kinsley notes.)”
“Sneering” in a media kerfuffle?!?!!? I’m shocked.
Kinsley’s piece reeked of professional envy and personal animosity. I felt a little embarrassed for him.
I felt like I was reading a GG article.
Oh, NOW we get it: it was supposed to be a Book Review! See, when I read Mr. Kinsley’s screed, I didn’t get that, mostly because there wasn’t much if anything in it about the book.
Sometimes that’s appropriate. Martin Amis once had a review published of a book by Desmond Morris on English professional soccer, and Mr. Amis decided to spend almost all the space allotted for his review in discussing his own take on the subject of the book. Eventually, Mr. Amis threw in less than a sentence, right near the end (presumably to lend the impression of it being an afterthought) about how the subject of the book appeared to have completely evaded Mr. Morris’ comprehension, or even attention. And that was fine, because the treatment struck the mark exactly in the bull’s-eye
Mr.Kinsley’s aim, however, was not so true. His review of Mr. Greenwald’s book was more like a Cheney Shot, where the hunter shoots a friend in the face, or mortally wounds an ally, or offs his own foot.
Yet, The New York Times presumably PAID Mr. Kinsley for a book review, right? This is a good gig Mr. Kinsley’s been able to secure for himself: just off the value in his own name, he managed to get published in the Paper of Record a screed so devoid of substance and so puffed up with hubris, it might as well have been posted at NRO, The Daily Caller or on the Breitbart site.
…or a Greenwald article.