Jeffrey Toobin Is A Loathsome Liar

Jeffrey Toobin is a guy with a law degree, who occupied a perch at two important fonts of U.S. establishment propaganda: CNN, where under the guise of “legal analyst” he pushes establishment political lines, and writing in the elite haute bourgeous magazine The New Yorker since 1992. He has been part of the pack of attack dogs savaging the whistle blowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, and Wikileaks leader Julian Assange. In short, he is a cog in the system of power in America whose role is to guide the thoughts of susceptible minds into the proper channels. [1]

In a New Yorker article about the prosecution of female jail guards in Baltimore who were seduced by gang member inmates and smuggled drugs to them, Toobin falsely links George Jackson, (who was murdered by California prison bosses in 1971) to this prison gang. After painting Jackson as a misogynist, using an alleged quote from Jackson's 1970 book Soledad Brother, Toobin writes, and this is an entire paragraph:

“In 1970, Jackson was charged with murdering a prison guard, allegedly in retaliation for the deaths of several inmates. [Notice, a guard is “murdered,” but inmates the guards kill aren't murdered, they just “die.” In fact, guards shot down inmates in the exercise yard from guard towers in deliberate assassinations of “radical” inmates. Toobin can't even bother to say how many inmates were murdered, just “several.”] The following year, while awaiting trial, he pulled a smuggled gun from beneath a wig and took several guards hostage. In the chaos that followed two inmates and three guards died in Jackson's cell block, and Jackson was killed in the prison yard.” [2]

That's all Toobin has to say about that. I was flabbergasted to read this, since it was a surprise to see this long ago discredited piece of California state propaganda pop up years later as fact. It is tantamount to Toobin repeating the New York State lie that the Attica inmates who rebelled murdered and castrated the guards they had taken prisoner (the guards were shot dead by New York State Police and National Guardsmen who stormed the prison, and were not castrated). What happened then was the story was immediately exposed as preposterous. The gun the state claimed Jackson hid under a wig was way too large to be hidden on top of someone's head under a wig. When this was pointed out, the state came up with a different, smaller gun, and said that was the gun. Still impossible, absurd, as was the very idea that Jackson, closely supervised when transported from his cell to other parts of the prison, could have somehow obtained a gun, and a wig, and worn the wig without the guards noticing, with a gun “hidden” under it. What became quite clear in short order was that Jackson had been assassinated, although apparently it didn't go so smoothly. A committed revolutionary, Jackson had survived numerous previous attempts on his life. This all occurred in the context of the war on the Black Panther Party, which made Jackson a member in prison based on his writings and renown. The wig and gun story was just a pathetic cover story that fell apart as soon as it was touched.

The vaunted, renowned, storied, stuff-of-legend New Yorker “fact-checking department” seems to do fact-checking more like you'd expect at the Soviet-era Pravda. Not reliable or trustworthy, and elevating ideology over truth, intellectual and moral integrity, and honesty.

Smug and well-fed in his highly paid, comfortably conformist role, Toobin takes satisfaction in the imprisonment and suffering of heroes like Manning, and ardently hopes for the same for Ed Snowden. “Liberal” defender of the total surveillance state, Toobin thinks NSA surveillance of everything and everyone is no big deal.

1] You can experience a sample of this loathsome toad in action, “debating” with Glenn Greenwald and James Risen, “Glenn Greenwald on Piers Morgan On XKEYSCORE Greenwald OWNS Toobin AGAIN!”

2] “Letter From Baltimore,” “This Is My Jail: Where gang members and their female guards set the rules.” The New Yorker, 4/14/14.