Greenwald Vs. Boylan: Dignity Is The Loser

Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald has gotten wrapped up in a very strange exchange with General Petraeus’s personal spokesman, Army Col. Steven Boylan.

Greenwald got a grammatically liberated, adolescent email from Col. Boylan yesterday, complaining about a post of Greenwald’s in which he accused the military of coordinating only with media outlets of a certain, conservative bent.

Col. Boylan wrote:

“As for working in secret with only certain media is laughable. The wide swatch of media engagements is by far the most diverse it could be. But you might not think it that way since we chose not to do an interview with you. You are not a journalist nor do you have any journalistic ethical standards as we found out from the last time I engaged with you.”

Hours later, writing from the same IP address, Col. Boylan denies ever having written the email.

The whole thing is reminiscent of a schoolyard fight, complete with “Did not!” and “Did too!”s, the technicality-obsessed smarty-pants, and the brash bully caught in a desperate lie. It would be hilarious were the dignity of our military not on the line.

This long, bizarre, impossibly compelling saga spans two posts, with no fewer than eight updates. It begins here.