Ezra emailed the Dish yesterday and wrote the following:
I set two rules for members: Center to left, and not working for the government, I didn't exercise discretion beyond that because I didn't want to be in the position of selectively choosing people.
He now concedes in another email that this is untrue:
I should say that I did make a few discretionary decisions. I didn't allow the Media Matters people on Journolist. I thought that was a conflict of interest.
He now says he also determined whether invitees were too interested in media coverage to join and also moderated spats between existing list-members and possible new members. This is is how Glenn Greenwald was first invited and then disinvited by Klein. It's also how much of the Firedoglake crowd never got on the list. Klein says he wasn't doing this on the basis of who he liked, and that is borne out by the evidence. He also tried to be as hands-off a moderator as possible.
But, contrary to his initial spin, he did act as a gatekeeper for a liberal list of journalists and did make decisions as to who would be included or not.