Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald was a constitutional lawyer in New York City, first at the Manhattan firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and then at the litigation firm he founded, Greenwald, Christoph. Greenwald litigated numerous high-profile and significant constitutional cases in federal and state courts around the country, including multiple First Amendment challenges. He has a J.D. from New York University School of Law (1994) and a B.A. from George Washington University (1990).
In October of 2005, Greenwald started a political and legal blog, Unclaimed Territory, which quickly became one of the most popular and highest-trafficked in the blogosphere. Upon disclosure by the New York Times in December 2005 of President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program, Greenwald became one of the leading and most cited experts on that controversy. In early 2006, he broke a story on his blog regarding the NSA scandal that served as the basis for front-page articles in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, all of which credited his blog for the story. Several months later, Sen. Russ Feingold read from one of Greenwald's posts during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Feingold's resolution to censure the president for violating FISA. In 2008, Sen. Chris Dodd read from Greenwald's Salon blog during floor debate over FISA. Greenwald's blog was also cited as one of the sources for the comprehensive report issued by Rep. John Conyers titled "The Constitution in Crisis." In 2006, he won the Koufax Award for best new blog.
In May 2006, Greenwald published his first book, "How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values From a President Run Amok," which critiqued the radical theories of executive power used by the Bush administration to justify everything from lawbreaking powers to the use of torture to indefinite detention of American citizens. The book was an instant bestseller, rising to No. 1 on Amazon's Best Seller List and remaining there for almost a full week. The book also debuted at No. 11 on the New York Times Best Seller list, and remained on the list for the next two months.
Greenwald's second book, "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good v. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency," was published by Random House/Crown and released on June 26, 2007. On the day of its release, the book went to #1 on Amazon's Best-Selling Non-Fiction list, and it also debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list in its first week. "A Tragic Legacy" examines the role of Manichaean morality and the exploitation of the concept of the "enemy" during the Bush presidency and argues that President Bush's single-minded dependence on good vs. evil themes has rendered his presidency a failure.
Greenwald's third book, "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics," will be published on April 15, 2008, by Crown (Random House). The book examines the personality-based mythologies and manipulative electoral techniques used by the GOP, and propagated by the establishment press, to determine the outcome of our national elections. Alan Colmes wrote an advance review of the book here.
