One more thing about Klein v. Lane. Lane writes:
I objected to Klein’s piece about Lieberman for the same reason I objected to the right’s scare talk about socialism and ‘death panels’….
Lane’s primary piece dealing with “death panels” was titled “Undue Influence: The House Bill Skews End-of-Life Counsel.” It contains two lines objecting to death panels — the rest of the piece talks about how troubling the end-of-life provisions in the House health care bill were. The piece was even cited by Sarah Palin as an example of an article that supports Palin’s death panel theory.
Compare Lane’s “I don’t believe in death panels but they have a point” with his disagreement with Ezra Klein, wherein he calls Klein “venomous” and does not concede that Ezra has any point.
Lane’s “objections” to talk about “death panels” are, apparently, a lot like Joe Klein’s “objections” to the Iraq War — a few lines of criticism combined with a great deal of water-carrying for the thing supposedly being objected to.
It’s a weird world we live in. All it takes to be classified as a liberal pundit is to direct a word or two of criticism towards the right every now and then. You can spend the majority of your time attacking the venomous America-haters on the left and still be the liberal columnist for Time magazine or the editor of the liberal New Republic.
The Grand Panjandrum
No, no, no. They are contrarians. Right?
Or something like that.
valdivia
Thank you for pointing this out.
Jim Crozier
This blog post reminds me why my martini glass is empty…and why it needs to be refilled.
Ailuridae
That’s a heckuva Mickey Kaus imitation Mr Lane is doing.
Napoleon
For the most part so called liberals that are hired to mainstream media outlets to provide balance are nothing more then the Washington Generals of their respective media outlets.
dmsilev
@Ailuridae: Has anyone warned the goats?
-dms
Notorious P.A.T.
“It contains two lines objecting to death panels—the rest of the piece talks about how troubling the end-of-life provisions in the House health care bill were.”
Ha! Lane is full of it.
max hats
To be fair, the state of public and media debate in this country as epitomized by Lane is, in fact, “good news for conservatives.”
Leelee for Obama
I’ve only read a bit of this pie fight, but Ezra is much to fair-minded and cool headed to deserve what Lane is shoveling. He’s been very informative throughout this health care effort, and Lieberman had just completely shit on it, and flip-flopped on his own policy idea while doing it. He deserves derision, and being mad a Ezra for saying what needed to be said is just dumb.
Great title, BTW.
Napoleon
By the way I think TNC’s description of Lieberman is the best:
Kryptik
That’s because “Even The” Liberals play a significant role in being useful tools for the right to prop up. They’re the ‘conscientious voices’ that expose the left as anti-American, don’t you know.
El Cid
Good thing people like Lieberman don’t say insulting scary things about how Democrats if given their way on foreign policy would cause more Americans to die through terrorist attacks against us.
That would be uncouth.
Darkrose
I truly love the headline for this post.
Marc
…while tacitly conceding every single one of Klein’s points.
My wife canceled our Sunday-only Post subscription yesterday. It was because they jacked up the prices (though months of being pissed off at Fred Hiatt didn’t hurt), and it was before either one of us read Lane’s piece, but the timing was fucking perfect.
fledermaus
I knew that “but I objected when repub did it” line was bullshit