Jeffrey Goldberg is a great example of how you never went broke in journalism by turning in sloppy and tendentious work that served the interests of powerful men. The frustrating thing is that he occasionally turns in good and thoughtful work, as with his eloquent piece on the settlement movement in Israel, but then uses it to bolster his self-appointed position as intellectual arbiter of the shtetl. (Ironically, his writing about Jews is shallow and cramped, as with this post about Brooklyn Jews, which is as cliched and outdated as is possible without using the words plotz or shmear.) Much as he poses as a bad-muchacho ex-Mafia reporter, his response to the ridicule he deserves is to, say, have his editor tell people that he’s calling the FBI on his oh-so-threatening critics. Like all such bullies, he’s actually a pussy. 

Anyway, all this is on display with his recent post trying relentlessly to manipulate Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch’s words until Roth concedes some non-existent wrongdoing in raising money from a handful of private Saudi citizens through, among other things, highlighting HRW’s work holding Israel accountable for human rights violations. When a reader takes Goldberg to task for his sloppy implication that HRW shouldn’t "talk to Arab audiences about Israel," he’s horrified at the absurdity — did it not occur to him? — and replies that "perhaps there should be a rule that Human Rights Watch not raise funds in its main target countries." Since HRW criticizes the human-rights practices of every country on earth, presumably that means the organization can collect some space cubits on Alpha Centauri. 

Matt Duss writes the next chapter, collecting a a reply to Goldberg from HRW’s Sarah Whitson:

In talking about our work, we point out that we are as critical of Israel as we are of every other country in the Middle East. That really comes as a surprise to people in the Middle East when they hear that, because they have the opposite perception.

To which Duss adds: "Discussing the very real and intense hostility that right-wing pro-Israel groups show toward HRW’s reporting — hostility to which Jeffrey Goldberg has, through sloppy and tendentious journalism, now added some weight — is obviously not the same as invoking ‘the Jewish lobby.’" Look out, Duss! When the shtetl police kick at your front door, how you gonna come? 

I get the sense that Goldberg posted his follow-up because he retains a measure of intellectual honesty. Hey fella: cultivate that, yeah? You’re not entirely corrupted, and you don’t seem to even mean to be corrupt. So how about you approach your work with the rigor that the topics you cover deserve?