Better to laugh than to scream, I guess, so here is a Radar Online take down of Joe Klein (via Glenn Greenwald) that will bring a smile to your face. Two things to highlight:
1.) The article points out that this was one of the first comments ever on a Joe Klein Swampland post:
Just because I hate to see the lefties get all the credit, let the record show that at least one moderate Republican finds you despicable.
Heh.
2.) The article also makes fun of Joe’s “policy” positions:
But the penultimate paragraph offers a window into a mind that has been blinded by self-regard: “As I’ve thought about these issues, a pattern has emerged: They are synergistic, mutually reinforcing. They fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. … When you put the jigsaw puzzle together, the nation that emerges is more equitable, more efficient, with a reinvigorated citizenry—a safer and more powerful nation, braced by the power of moral example as well as military supremacy.” Huzzah! Can you make the nation more equitable, efficient, safe, powerful, and invigorated in 4,300 words or less, Glenn Greenwald? I didn’t think so! When Klein writes about the courage necessary to lead the country out of its current quagmire, he’s thinking of someone in the arena, amid the blood, sweat, and dust. And it’s not one of the candidates.
The piece notes that Klein’s foray in blogging has been little more than a “yearlong self-immolation.” Good stuff.
Zifnab
Ah Joe Klein, maybe if you spent less time thinking about patterns and more time reading the legislation you target in your Op Eds, you’d have even more time to look for patterns because you’d be spending a lot less time qualifying and backpedaling over all your bullshit columns.
If Joe Klein is a liberal, I’m beginning to understand why conservatives revile them so much.
Dennis - SGMM
Klein must be channeling Hedley Lamarr:
“My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention”.
Cyrus
Yeah, I’ve gone to his blog once in a while, and it’s been funny stuff. The comments rarely relate to whatever the post is, but to stuff like the FISA column and his latest bit of sloppy-writing-at-best on paper. Everyone in his comments section unanimously hates him, and in addition to plenty of invective, there are also plenty of coherent (and, usually, airtight) rebuttals.
I’ve been a little surprised that Swampland — Klein’s part of it, at least — has kept going this long. Either some editor or manager at Time is really, really dumb and stubborn and is making Klein stay there, or some editor or manager at Time is actually really clever and they’re making Klein stay there to get rid of him or teach him some lesson but he’s being really, really dumb and stubborn and not learning. Or else Time has decided that page views are worth more than Klein’s reputation and their own.
Bombadil
I vote for that one.
maxbaer (not the original)
Thanks John, that was some funny stuff. Joke Line’s a little bloodier, dustier and sweatier than he was. Tho, after Greenwald’s takedown, that’s not easy.
Z
Maybe Mr. Klein should think about a career change. He could become a humanities professor, for instance. Pomposity is a job requirement in that profession.
grumpy realist
I’d say Mr. Klein is what Cassidy will be like in 20 years, but I don’t think even our resident pet commentator will manage to match Mr. Klein’s level of preening pomposity and sniffitude-upon-being-criticized-by-the-hoi-polloi. You can just see Mr. Klein aching to retort to anything with “shut up! SHUT UP! Don’t you know I’m a *JOURNALIST*?!””
Z
Well, Grumpy, that might be his retort…
but what he is thinking is ‘Shut UP! Shut UP! Shut UP! Who cares if you are right about the facts?!? Don’t you know I am smarter than you? I’m smarter than ALL of you and all of the IMPORTANT people know it!’
The important people being the people he would hang out with… and the criteria for people he would hang out with would be people who think he is really smart.
over there
This Klein comment says it all:
“I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who’s right.”
This after getting thoroughly busted for not understanding a damn thing about the FISA legislation. As though asking him to back up or correct what he writes is an unreasonable imposition on his packed schedule and limited knowledge! Could somebody who says this–oblivious to its dripping arrogance, misplaced condescension and the fact that IF YOU DON’T FREAKING HAVE A CLUE ABOUT SOMETHING YOU’RE COVERING YOU MUST, BY ALL THAT’S DECENT, PROFESSIONAL AND HONORABLE, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND FIND OUT, OR REFRAIN FROM WRITING ABOUT IT TO BEGIN WITH–ever understand any criticism that’s leveled at him?
He is apparently not bright enough to recognize the humiliation he works hard to achieve every day. Pointing out his myriad failures is like smacking a concrete block–the beater feels a little better but the block remains insensate.