Hey, the Greenwald “acolyte” Joe Klein mocked was longtime Balloon-Juice commenter aimai of No More Mister Nice Guy Blog (via Atrios)!
Last week I went to a cookout on the beach here with some old friends (Sausages and seafood, but no cocktail weenies!) Every year they do a cookout, and then a birthday party, and for years I’ve known that one of their guests was Joe Klein. I never mixed it up with him because, after all, well…the opportunity never presented itself and while I’m pretty aggressive in print no one really goes up to someone and picks a quarrel with them, do they?
Or maybe they do. Yes, I guess they do. I was standing at the cookout minding my own business when Klein started pontificating for the rubes on how “surprising” and “shocking” it was that Grassley, of all people, should have come out and endorsed the “death panels” lie. I walked up and said “why are you surprised?” [edited to remove typo] to which he, in best pundit debater fashion (never allow yourself to admit you were just posing!), shot back “who says I’m surprised?” I said “well, you did. You just started your lecture saying “Its surprising.”” Its not surprising, the republicans have nothing left to lose and nothing left to gain at this point outside of pleasing the crazy base and attacking Obama and the dems.”
We were off and running. He then said that its true the fringe republicans were “crazy” but perhaps no crazier than the “crazy left” under Bush….
Read the whole thing. I like the part where Klein says that Wikipedia is leftist.
gwangung
Wikipedia is leftist????
Then so’s the whole damn country…(kinda telegraphs the point that he doesn’t understand wikipedia and the internet past 1999).
DougJ
Wikipedia is leftist????
I’m imagining Al Pacino playing Klein in this scene “I’M OUT OF ORDER, YOU’RE ALL OUT OF ORDER!”
r€nato
Joe Klein sure misses the days when the common riff-raff simply read his work and wasn’t permitted to talk back about it.
Steve LaBonne
They’re sure as hell talking back in the comments to his stupid whine. Good stuff.
Cat Lady
DougJ – thanks for keeping up with your own commentariat ;->
The koolkidz here have been high fiving aimai since she posted last week. Charlie Pierce gave her a shout out on her own blog – The Charlie Pierce of the Globe.
FYI, for you in case you didn’t know, she’s I.F. Stone’s granddaughter, right aimai? If I were her, I would have punched Joke Line in the neck and said this is for Izzy, you mediocre hack!
someguy
Awesome. But I wish he’d had the nerve to punch Klein in the throat, knee him in the groin, then pour a flaming shot of Sambuca down his shirt.
Respectfully, of course.
Gotta maintain that civil discourse.
JK
Calling Wikipedia leftist is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard out of the mouth of Joe Klein. The worst aspect of Wikipedia isn’t political bias, it’s horrible quality control. I’m sure there are Wikipedia entries that are politically biased, but I’m more concerned about people with little or no subject expertise writing entries that are riddled with factual errors.
Keith
Wow, Klein is getting raked over the coals in the comments over this latest tantrum. Quite hilarious.
stinkwrinkle
Well, Joe, there’s always the alternative…
Brachiator
A great anecdote on so many levels. Klein’s ego, duplicity and obvious eagerness to do journalist whoring was exposed for all to see.
And I liked the unintentional irony of what happens when a pundit, who typically bemoans the low intelligence of some who read him, is confronted by someone who can match him point by journalistic point.
I would pay good money for a YouTube clip of this.
KG
@someguy: why waste a good shot of Sambuca?
Punchy
Can I get a picture of Klein and aimai together on Cole’s futon?
Comrade Kevin
Joke Line is displaying almost Newt Gingrich-like levels of being a thin-skinned bully there. The comments on his post are hilarious.
JackieBinAZ
@Punchy: Who gets to wear the Steelers cape?
tripletee
@Keith:
It’s gold. Three pages of comments and counting, and only one post supporting poor Joe. Things get so disorderly when the proles are allowed to talk back.
BTW, great story, aimai. When can we expect you to change your handle to “Greenwald’s Woman Acolyte”?
malraux
@stinkwrinkle: But see, that’s the proof that wikipedia is liberal, because there’s a conservative willing to say the opposite.
phantomist
There is no one that will save you
Going down in flames
No surrender certain death
You look it in the eye
Primary colors don’t run from cold, bloody bloggers
plom
I’m not sure the Wiccans that moderate Wikipedia have a particular left/right slant, but their whole Triple Goddess thing makes me uncomfortable. Really, isn’t one Goddess enough. I think they’re perverts.
gizmo
The amazing thing about Klein is that he owns some important journalistic real estate, yet he chooses to get into a pissing match with a blogger. If I had a column in TIME magazine I like to think that my sights would be set a bit higher, and I would use the platform to push the political dynamic in this country in a better direction.
Brachiator
@gizmo:
Who’s got time for high-minded crap like that when there are grudges to nurse and scores to settle?
Calouste
Klien quoting from his own email.
Fulcanelli
Wikipedia is Leftist. Let me let that sink in for a minute.
…
Time’s up. Well that just reaffirms what we all know, in that facts have a Liberal bias. Move along, nothing to see here. {face/palm}
Way to go, Aimai. We need more Blows Against The Empire.
Didn’t I warn you here the other night about letting your guard down with fucksticks like Klein, DougJ?
wasabi gasp
Joe’s dreamcoat just got bleached.
arguingwithsignposts
Wow. Never seen this before. PBS sites are down.
asiangrrlMN
Hi-five, aimai, you successfully got under Klein’s skin. What a stupid fucker he is.
arguingwithsignposts
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pacific hurricane hit before.
Batocchio
Huh, I thought this was linked here before. Oh well, it’s great, so enjoy it, all those who hadn’t seen it yet – and congratulate aimai once again for a job well done. Klein is really pathetic.
SpotWeld
Joe Klein is struggling hard to create an identity as a writer that differentiates himself between “bloggers” (especially Greenwald).
For the most part (as far as roles go) there is no different. Klein seems to coast a bit on position though. He is who he is because of who he is.
Greenwald, agree or disagree, as a tone, a style, and an identity. And as far as the industry goes, that’s bankable.
Klein is too used to baking on access in an environment of limited communication channels. Which is sort like being the guy who was a travel agent. Good still, bankable at one point in time. These days only useful in a handful of specific circumstances.
Linkmeister
@arguingwithsignposts: Sadly, I can describe Pacific hurricanes all too well.
That was my experience with Iniki, Sept. 11, 1992. And Oahu barely got touched compared to Kauai.
Linkmeister
Is this the thread where I complain about apparent early-onset Alzheimers? I filled our dishwasher, pressed the “Normal Wash” button, and watched the LED light up for a minute, then watched it go out. Did that two or three times and it didn’t turn on. Walked away, cussing.
Came back about five minutes later, pressed the “Normal Wash” button, then pressed the “Start” button. Started right up.
Bleah.
Cain
@Linkmeister:
That was my experience with Iniki, Sept. 11, 1992. And Oahu barely got touched compared to Kauai.
September 11th.. man what is about that date? Just damn unlucky. I need to look up September 11th on wikipedia and see what other disasters happened.
cain
arguingwithsignposts
@Linkmeister:
I feel for you. As a former resident of the Gulf Coast of Texas, I’ve been through my share of hurricanes.
KG
@Linkmeister: I was on Maui for Iniki. A few weeks earlier, I was on one of the last planes out of Miami before Andrew hit. That was a fun summer.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cain:
Well, there’s a couple of truthers making a disaster out of the Monday Night Open Thread right now, if you want to look.
Linkmeister
@KG: My parents were at Napili Kai on Maui that day.
KG
@Cain: according to wikipedia, on September 11, 1970, the Ford Pinto was introduced. That, along with the discovery of Manhattan island may be the highlight of the date.
Cain
@KG:
@Cain: according to wikipedia, on September 11, 1970, the Ford Pinto was introduced. That, along with the discovery of Manhattan island may be the highlight of the date
Hmm.. I don’t remember seeing that. I did see a cat 4 hurricane had hit Texas. Also, Benjamin Franklin penned some poem that said essentially how a big empire turned into a small one.
cain
El Cid
If Joe Klein hadn’t have been stationed on the journalistic front lines, complimenting the military and the ‘clandestine services’, most of us would all be dead now, as our actual primary national security first line of defense is journalists’ ability to suggest that the U.S. military is awesome.
Anastasius
This is hilarious. Joke Line is trying to start a flame war but even his own comment section is just trashing him. Come on, at least have couple of fake accounts backing you up.
He’s clearly not aware of all internet traditions.
Libertini
Think I can explain the “leftist” tag for Wikipedia.
Right=Republican, correct, American, believing that competition is best for everyone and everything in every situation. Motto: Leave me alone except for when I want something from you.
Left=Liberal, Communist, DFH, anti-American, believing that cooperation among people and societies creates better people AND societies. And per the Cultural dictionary, “someone who seeks radical social and economic change in the direction of greater equality.”
Learn these definitions and you will get along fine when reading anything in the MSM. Conservative politicians call everything leftist that doesn’t say exactly what they want it to all the time, so I’m sure that’s what they meant. But when I considered what a cooperative venture Wikipedia is, it made me both understand, and accept the “leftist” tag for it.
bjacques
1973, Chile: Pinochet’s overthrow of Salvador Allende
I remember the National Lampoon headline a couple of months later:
I.T.T.’s all over for Allende.
President dead of self-inflicted airstrike
Quote: “Es muy tragico. Our beloved Presidente shot himself 37 times, pausing only once to reload.”
drunken hausfrau
I saw aimai’s post a while ago and asked if Jokeline was aware of who she was… apparently not… so, I guess he doesn’t read the intertubes much! Seriously — to dis her as a “nobody” and call Greenwald a traitor in one idiotic post — wow! Shame he didn’t add that Digby was some leftist “guy” in LA. Hat trick of stupid!
J Price Vincenz
This is pretty “week-old news,” no? This morning’s beautiful story can be found on gawker about the SC Secretary of Education who had to resign due to err “family matters,” which this time is code for getting caught writing online one-handed-literature, all of which wouldn’t be that much of a problem if she wasn’t a home-schooling rightwinger who supported abstinence-pedagogy and intelligence-design. Ahhh, Palmetto perfect, and only one day after her colleague, the Lieutenant Gov was outed.
J Price Vincenz
Sorry, I didn’t know about the Time/Swampland Jokeline post–wow, that’s a jumping the shark moment, wouldn’t you say? Why did Jokeline even pursue this line? Even by Time’s “journalistic standards,” this is pretty lame. His post reads more like a Ben Domenech/Loadpants ghost-written column.
ironranger
@Linkmeister:
Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s spooks in the house.
Recently, while guy & I are watching the morning news, the radio/cd player near just came on all by itself. This has happened a couple of times.
Awhile back, I was alone at home when I heard a noise in our basement. I crept down the stairs to discover the tv had turned on all on it’s own. This also happened two or three times.
Then there is the occasional creaking of the basement steps in the middle of the night when I am up because I can’t sleep. All is very quiet in the house when I hear the creaking sound the steps would make when one of our cats came up upstairs. Our last kitty dies over a year ago & we haven’t replaced her.
Mysteries.
bago
I have been fairly aware of many internet traditions (It’s caturday, dammit!), but goddamn. This is a reaming of supernova magnitudes. Three pages of comments and only one half-heartedly supporting him. Simplistic arguments about how “Facts” should be used to help determine “Reality” being bandied about The whole “I was there” bit is just the icing on the cake.
Reminds me of ugly incidents in the past where you have to hear your co-workers mocking your recently murdered friends. Reminds me of the torture debate.
Where the only way you will ever get these douchebags to understand is to be very violent, but by succumbing to the violence you only perpetuate it.
You can really convince someone that torture is wrong when you torture them, but by enacting torture you only perpetuate the notion that it is effective. You have to go all Jesus like and turn the other cheek. Toss in a Gandhi if you must, but that brings along hippie connotations that are not always useful.
Alas this does not apply to many children of privilege, but occasionally some have enough of a mote of a soul to realize that even they did not earn their position of privilege by their own works, they should extend a lending hand to those who can, rather than retreating into a Manichean polity.
It might be time to discuss a reform of the corporate charter.
Xenos
@Cain: September 11, 1973 was when the CIA sponsored coup took place in Chile. Thousands of innocent people died.
I may be revealing my self as a way gone cold war era lefty, but in the early moments after the attacks on NY and the Pentagon I remembered there were tens of thousands of family members of the civilians tortured, shot, beaten to death, and thrown out of helicopters by proxies of our government. I assumed that was who was behind the attacks.
Of course, the question on everybody’s lips was ‘why do people hate us’?
SGEW
Huh. I never put two and two together and notice that the aimai who commented here was the same aimai who wrote that (now gloriously notorious, and well deservedly) Klein-destroying post. Rock on, aimai. Rock on.
Also, @Linkmeister: I was on the Big Island (near Kona) for that one back in ’92, watching th’ weather from a safe distance. Neat.
anonevent
Klein says that Wikipedia is leftist
Reality does have a liberal bias.
Betsy
Terrorist fist bump to aimai!
And ok, there is so much wrong with that Klein piece, but the thing that jumped out at me was: “woman acolyte?!” For serious? Is he going to start calling Helen Thomas a “lady reporter” and Michelle Wie a “girl golfer?” My god.
What’s so sickening about it is that “woman” is clearly supposed to be part of the put-down – bad enough that she’s an “acolyte,” but to be a “woman acolyte” takes it from dismissible to comical in Klein’s eyes.
Arr-squared
anonevent
@drunken hausfrau: He doesn’t think much of bloggers, as he’s said, so I doubt he goes out and reads many of them. They would be a waste of his time.
SiubhanDuinne
@ironranger 6:29 am
That’s some very weird stuff. I’ve also had moments recently when the small tv in the bedroom just turns off or changes channels by itself. Quite disconcerting but not scary.
However (at the risk of underlining the obvious) I believe Linkmeister’s problem was that the first three times he forgot to push the start button on the dishwasher :-)
Brian J
What’s with this guy? Some days, he’s on target. Other days, he’s got the accuracy of a guy trying to kill a fly with an AK-47.
Bill E Pilgrim
Wait, so Glenn Greenwald is a “bully”?
Glenn Greenwald, dirty fucking hippie blogger, writing for an upstart online zine, is “bullying” Time Magazine and its writers?
Let that one sink in for a moment.
Klein’s inherent contradictions (bloggers are not serious and have no status in the real world of journalism, and I’m utterly a victim of their awesome status and power) notwithstanding, that’s quite the revealing turn of phrase there.
Villagers are such classic paranoid lunatics.
Jason
I actually never made it to the Klein article itself. I came to a full stop at the “athenae” excerpt. And I mean the very first sentence:
The “more than a few” phrase is just a grace note on this many-scented lump of shit, the trace of morning coffee or the incongruous whiff of the menthols your friend smoked last night at the bar. Return of the repressed sexual enthusiasms of his youth, “more than a handful,” heh heh, right buddy, keep drinking. It must be in the stylebook, with the “Yes, but…” and the “should be wary of”
ironranger
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh yeah, I do things like that too.
It’s other weird stuff that happens in our house neither I nor anyone else had anything to do with.
Eric
I don’t know Joe Klein. I can’t defend anything in particular he’s written. But how would you react if you were at a party and somebody you don’t know and weren’t talking to came over, picked a fight with you, and started mocking you about criticisms you’ve been receiving from another person in your extended industry? Heck, how would you react if you had complete strangers picking apart every project you did at your job? And not just pointing out when you’d made errors, which is embarrassing enough, but calling you “weaselly,” lacking “integrity,” “mindless[ ],” “corrupt,” not “respectable,” etc. (as Glenn Greenwald did in the blog post that Aimai linked)?
Put yourself in Joe Klein’s shoes for a minute. Hardly anybody likes receiving criticism. Even constructive criticism is hard to take for most people. Now imagine that there’s a chorus of people criticizing every project you complete, at great length. And not just criticizing your work, but criticizing your character, in withering personal terms. And writing your boss (as Glenn Greenwald wrote to Time’s managing editor), to ask how you could have messed up so badly, and who was responsible for catching such mistakes, and doesn’t your company have the responsibility to not only fix such errors but explain to the public how such errors happened in the first place?
How would you react to such an attack? By resolving to do better, so as not to disappoint the audience that has taken such interest in your work? Or by saying “Who the f*@% are you to judge me, and why should I give a damn what you think about my work?? Leave me the f*@% alone!”
Glenn Greenwald seems to be right that Joe Klein messed up on FISA and then was hesitant and reluctant in correcting his error. But Joe Klein is right, too, that Glenn Greenwald is a “mean-spirited, graceless bully.” And Aimai’s post is similarly bullying. She picked a fight with a guy she doesn’t know (but seems surprisingly confident in her ability to psychoanalyze) and then put up a blog post gloating about how poorly he reacted to it.
Demo Woman
How old is Joe Klein? The reason I ask is he appears to be very immature. His bullying nonsensical emails indicate an individual that can’t admit that he is wrong. Maybe Joe should consider counseling.
JackieBinAZ
I ONLY read Joe Klein for the comments. Most of the time you can skip the whole article.
aimai
Well, that was fun. As to how old Joe Klein is? Well, its like the reverse of Megan McArgleBargle. She’s too old to play the ingenue and he’s too young to be an old man shouting at clouds.
aimai
Da Bomb
@aimai: You rock!! Good job fellow Balloon-Juicer!
Joe Klein is a dolt!
Fleem
Aimai, you completely rock and have done the country a great service with your takedown of this tool.
Can I be your woman acolyte?
Karen
Shorter Joe Klein: “Who stole that quart of strawberries?”
Demo Woman
@aimai: So true!
tripletee
@Fleem:
I don’t have the necessary plumbing for that, but I’m hoping aimai could use an evil minion too.
chopper
@Jason:
and “some people say” that klein is a total boob.
atheist
Not only is Wikipedia leftist, the Internet is a commie plot designed to sap our precious peace of mind.
Alert the people! Something must be done!
chopper
@Anastasius:
yeah, the comments are brutal. this one wins the internet…
Betty Cracker
@Eric — sounds like you’re mischaracterizing what happened. Aimai didn’t coldcock Klein outta the blue while he was sitting there eating a plate of baked clams. He was holding forth, and she joined the conversation with some inconvenient points.
As for the horror of having people pick apart your words, that comes with the territory when you’re a writer with a national platform. Boo-freakin-hoo.
jwb
@Eric: Except Joe Klein (like Greenwald) is engaged in a public profession and such public criticism goes with the territory. If Klein can’t take the heat, he’s really not suited for the profession. (BTW, while Greenwald can be mean, he is no bully; he’s very careful to choose targets who have the power to defend themselves.)
geg6
@Eric:
May I please point out that, in reading her post again, aimai was not someone unknown to Joe Klein as, she says, they have been at parties at that same place with the same people over several years. Parties the small size of about 30, which would be small enough that, over the years, the people who are annually invited would get to know one another, at least on the surface.
aimai called him out on douchbaggery. Joke Line didn’t like being called out on it, just as he doesn’t like it when Glenn does it.
As for the rest of your post, the most ridiculous thing beyond your defense of Klein’s wankery is that you actually criticize someone for writing to a columnist’s editor about serious factual errors in a column. FSM forbid that someone write a letter to an editor!
Unless you were writing snark, you are clueless.
geg6
@aimai:
Oh, look! It’s that pathetic woman acolyte!
Gawd, what a sexist wanker Joke is.
My theory (actually stolen from Pandagon’s comments) is that he really meant to call you a “groupie,” but thought that “groupie,” with its sexual connotations was too sexist and so he was being progressive by calling you a pathetic woman acolyte. How they differ, you would have to ask Joke.
Aimai
Hm. I think he wanted to write “catamite” but my gender dissuaded him.
Aimai
jim
A Warning To All Real Americans:
It’s true – Wikipedia IS leftist … & Google wants the terrorists to win!
In fact, “http” is actually an acronym for “Heathen Terrorist Training Program” – a crypto-Stalinist protocol that was instituted by Al “Qaeda” Gore! Any website with these letters WILL inevitably turn you into an abortion-loving, gun-confiscating, America-hater via brainwashing & subliminal messages.
Conservatives need to permanently abandon the Interwebs ASAP, before their precious bodily fluids are sapped & impurified beyond all hope of redemption!
Bill E Pilgrim
@Eric:
How would one feel if receiving criticism? Like say, Joe Klein calling you “mean-spirited”, or “a bully”? How about “graceless”?
These established insiders of the Beltway and national media have had a relatively unscrutinzed ride for years now, and it had real consequences, not just in the realm of gossip. They were free to pump up and legitimize the most astonishing lies fed to them from a right wing political and media machine that was little more than a propaganda outlet for the Republican party. Joe Klein was a staunch defender of the invasion in Iraq and the myths of weapons of mass destruction there until it became politically unpopular, but until then he parasailed the prevailing winds with the best of them, to his profit.
They’re the first to turn, and turn viciously, as we see here with Klein, on anyone who dares to question their legitimacy, and to do so in the most comic way . “Bully”? Greenwald is bullying Klein? Really?
John King of CNN wrote an infamous e-mail to Greenwald in which he called Greenwald’s work “uninformed drivel”. I hope that Greenwald puts that on the blurb of his next book, along with all the others praising him. “Brilliant”. “Incisive” “Scholarly” “The new voice of accountability” and then, “John King: “Uninformed drivel””
celticdragon
You rock, aimai!
*high five*
celticdragon
*Shorter Joe Klein: “Who stole that quart of strawberries?” *
That would an unfair comparison to Captain Queeg of the Caine Mutiny. Unfair to Queeg, that is.
gwangung
@geg6:
And he expressed this dislike of a personal encounter on a national forum.
Isn’t that kind of douchbaggery in and of itself?
karen
Both aimie and Greenwald have been awesome in this exchange. However, Glen’s latest update to the saga has me outraged on a whole other matter. I guess I am hopelessly naive but a “left” Journolist? A place where journalists and experts can gather and exchange “ideas” about policies? I guess they all gather to pat each other on the back and sit on their hands while Greenwald and precious few others do their jobs of calling out the lies which are pumped 24/7 into the public newsprint and airwaves. I am truly disgusted. As Ta-nehisi said, we get the (media) coverage we deserve.
HyperIon
@chopper: hey, that ‘s what i pasted into the original JokeLine thread. Whoever wrote it deserves much praise!
Paul in KY
Aimai, I know Mr. Stone is smiling down on you & elbowing Ed Murrow, & Walter Cronkite & Chet Huntley & saying ‘that’s my grandaughter!’.
Good on ya!
dave
Karen:
my thoughts exactly. I think the whole thing is ridiculous and speaks to the inside-the beltway careerism of liberal “journalists/pundits” that kills progressives every time.
Gary Farber
“How old is Joe Klein?”
Joe Klein is 63 (in four days), says the leftist Wikipedia, FWIW.