Shorter Okrent: I Hate The Internets

Atrios lays some much needed wood on Okrent Wimpy, the readers' representative who never met a reader he liked.

Someone who appears to be the real Steve Schwenk responds to Okrent here, with intelligence and courage:

When I wrote that e-mail to Mr. Nagourney, I was complaining about his sloppy reporting. And I was pointing out that it was because of such sloppy reporting (as the NYT has admitted in its mea culpa in May) that 1000 US tropps died in a war that likely never should have happened.

Now I know it is impossible to tell that from Okrent's piece. He has portrayed me falsely. He clipped the most inflammatory statement in the exchange, and falsely portrayed me in the worst light possible.

And not only that, Mr. Okrent called me a "coward." He printed that, not in an e-mail he sent just to me, but in the New York Times. And he refused to allow me even one word in my own defense. My private e-mail went to one person. The Nagourney-Okrent smear of my name went out to millions of people.

I admit that my choice of words was wrong; it was a mistake, I was angry, but my point was not malicious. I was angry at 1000+ dead in a war that never should have happened, and likely never would have happened, had the Times and other media done their job.

But I caused Mr. Nagourney no harm in sending him that e-mail, or the several others we exchanged, and I never intended to cause him harm. It was a private e-mail. But by falsely portraying me the way they have, and by calling me a coward, in the New York Times no less, Nagourney and Okrent have most definitely caused me harm. And the real crime is that that was clearly their intention.Steve Schwenk

So that's why they call Jokrent a public editor, he edits the public's e-mails beyond recognition.