Ken Klippenstein Is Wrong About Jeffrey Goldberg's Reporting, At Least This Time
Pathological narcissists don’t seek the truth—they manipulate reality to protect their fragile egos, beating them takes playing a stupid game.
A few days ago,
criticized Jeffrey Goldberg’s ‘mother may I?’ approach to journalism. When Klippenstein criticizes the media for acting subserviently to the national security state, I listen. I usually agree with Klippenstein, but in Goldberg’s case, his criticism is misplaced or at the very least is based on suspected motive, not the results.Suspected Motive VS Known Actions
Klippenstein rips into Goldberg’s handling of the Signal text controversy, painting him as a journalist who, instead of scrutinizing authority, waits for a government permission slip before reporting. Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, stalled publishing messages between top US officials until they were officially deemed "unclassified," a move Klippenstein sees as emblematic of the media's broader failure to challenge the national security apparatus. In short, Goldberg’s hesitance isn’t about responsible journalism—it’s about toeing the government line.
Goldberg’s intentions and internal motivations are unknown to me, but the actions are familiar to me and anyone who has needed to deal with people who behave like pathological narcissists. I’ve defined pathological narcissism in a way that exceeds any clinical definition. The results of my definition is someone who cannot face reality due to a fragile ego, driving them to be constantly manipulative to avoid having to live in the real world. Such people will lie about facts to the extent they believe they can, view every interaction as an isolated win-or-lose scenario, and often work to avoid locking themselves to any specifics.
To prove such folks are lying, you must first get them to commit to a specific version of reality. The easiest way to get someone with a fragile ego to commit to a version of events is to criticize them in a way that makes them believe they can defend themselves. They are not thinking about long term strategy, they are flailing to preserve their self-image.
For Pathological Narcissist Everything Is An Isolated Win-Or-Lose Scenario
The pathological narcissist’s playbook starts with denying anything they believe cannot be immediately proven true. A key aspect of this pathology is viewing every interaction as an isolated win-or-lose scenario. Consider from the Johnny Depp & Amber Heard trial: 'I did not punch you; I was hitting you.' Or from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,
Nobody's texting war plans.
I noticed this morning that something was released, but it doesn't look like war plans. In fact, they even changed the title to "attack plans" because they know it's not war plans.
There's no mention of units, locations, routes, flight paths, sources, methods, or classified information. You know who sees war plans? I do—every single day. I looked at them this morning. I looked at attack plans this morning.
You know who creates attack plans and war plans? Men like that admiral right there—Admiral Paparo for the Indo-Pacific—or General Erik Kurilla in CENTCOM. They develop attack plans and war plans. And thank God we have leaders like them who do it, and do it well. Our enemies know it.
My job, as stated at the top of that document—everyone has seen it now—was to provide updates in real-time. General updates. Keep everyone informed. That's what I did. That’s my job.
The warfighters will take the fight to the enemy, and I love what they do. And with President Trump's leadership, our enemies are on notice: we will have peace through strength.
Hegseth’s entire quote is contradicted by text messages that Goldberg later published in The Atlantic.
Pete Hegseth
TEAM UPDATE:TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/ CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.
1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)
1345: "Trigger Based" F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME) — also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)
1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)
1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier “Trigger Based” targets)
1536: F-18 2nd Strike Starts — also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.
MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)
We are currently clean on OPSEC.
Godspeed to our Warriors.
Emotionally I believe Hegseth was trying to fight off what he viewed as a personal attack when asked about the “war plan” text messages. Hegseth knew what he’d said, but he had no reason to think the reporter asking the question knew what he’d said. For Hegseth this was as an isolated win-or-lose scenario, not a prelude to a media blast showing his pants were in fact on fire.
Results Of The Soup
Goldberg consulted multiple government agencies before publishing the text messages, creating a moment where the CIA sought redactions for national security reasons—despite the claims of the president and the group chat members that nothing was classified. Now maybe Goldberg did this to be a good NatSec lapdog, but the result is one more contradiction.
The Trump administration is staffed with high Mach people. To deal with them you must bait them into locking in a final answer before you show your hand. Regardless of the reason for Goldberg’s actions, he locked members of a group chat into a reality, and he punched them in the face with it. Well, maybe they were just hit, and not punched.
Edits for typos, including in the title took place shortly after publishing.