We won’t know what he was going to do with an interview with Obama now, unfortunately, but it would have been very telling.

I have a degree of respect for journalists who curry favour to gain access in order to really press issues and do the actual job of (adversarial) journalism. There’s a fine line to walk if you want to do this because it’s extremely easy to get blacklisted, especially these days.

I think one good example of being behind enemy lines like this for the sake of journalism is Abby Martin going to Israel to interview average Israelis on the streets to get them to indict themselves via vox pop. It would be uncharitable to denounce Martin for going to Israel and speaking with Israelis given what she went there for and what she achieved.

Whether Hasan had intended a similar angle w/interviewing Obama or any other big figure in the Democratic Crime Syndicate idk but I think there’s an argument to be made that simply rubbing shoulders with them does not necessarily mean that you are a Compradorpoints-esque figure.

The other side of the argument is that he was allowing himself to be coopted and he was betraying his principles for cash and clout. This is where a conflict emerges between the more liberal-oriented model of the “objective” or politically-neutral journalist and the person who has an overtly political platform (but I don’t really buy into that paradigm personally) however what Hasan was doing was the inverse; rather than starting from the place of journalistic inquiry and becoming politically partisan, he started from the place of political partisanship and was intending to pursue a journalistic endeavour. I think this makes the issue so much more complex because we are going to view his actions as politics-first, even if he is attempting to do something journalism-first, but to stand on ground for your political beliefs only to rescind them to start pursuing journalistic endeavours does give a strong impression of reneging on your politics.

For me I absolutely cannot be fucked trawling through hours of streams in the lead up and the aftermath to glean some insight into what he had planned to do because he just isn’t that important to me. So that leaves me feeling cautious about Hasan until I get some good info shedding light on this from a trustworthy source but I personally don’t think that this alone is sufficient for me to consider him persona non grata as it stands.