Q: Doesn't Joe Klein profess to be a liberal?

[CatWoman]

I just can't figure this guy out.

he's always trashing Democrats, and praising shit-for-brains Bush.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. He can "profess" whatever he wants. That does not make it true.

This is the guy that wrote "Primary Colors"
from Wikipedia....

In January 1996, Klein anonymously published the novel Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics, based on the 1992 Democratic presidential primary. The book spent 9 weeks as number one on the New York Times bestseller list, with its author listed as "Anonymous". When professor Donald Foster correctly identified Klein as the novel's author, based on a literary analysis of the book and Klein's previous writing, Klein lied and publicly attacked Foster for publishing untrue and irresponsible speculation -- even going so far as to mislead readers of Newsweek with speculation that another writer wrote it. Washington Post Style editor David von Drehle, in an interview, asked Klein if he was willing to stake his journalistic credibility on his denial, to which Klein agreed.<2> He later admitted that the speculation was correct. (The novel's first paragraph contains a sentence spoken by the not-yet-named narrator, "I am small and not so dark", speculated to be a reference to klein, the German word for "small".)

[bunkerbuster1]

2. With friends like Joke Line, we don't need enemies.

I fully support the piling-on we're seeing these days and hope he's disgraced. Few phony "liberals" deserve it more richly than this jerk.

[melody]

3. He's a faux liberal sociopath, like Paglia

He says he's a liberal in order to curry favor with the far-right while he bashes the left.

[devilgrrl]

4. Yes. And so does Tammy Fucking Bruce!

:eyes:

Yeah, sure they are.

[OHdem10]

5. Democrats shoulf vociforously disclaim people like Klein

Bruce.

[karynnj]

6. On foreign policy, he was completely changed by 911

Everything he has written since then has been very negative for the Democrats. he spoke of his town losing people, but so did towns all over the tri-state area (and elsewhere). It's beginning to sound like it traumatized him. He may very well still be liberal on social or economic issues. He writes more on foreign policy though.

I think liberal/conservative may have insufficient dimensions - especially now that foreign policy and security issues are so dominant. There likely is an axis maybe defined as neo-con vs real politics that made the old designations useless. This would explain why the reporting of the NYT and WP, always designated as liberal were so willing to help Bush in the run up to the war and why their coverage on Kerry's Iraq and terrorism policies was so negative. Consider the coverage of Bush's second inaugural address, where he spoke of "spreading democracy" as the reason behind Iraq. Now, this was NOT what they told Congress or the American people.

I remember speaking to someone in 2006, who was impressed with Kerry's September 2006 Real Security speech, he couldn't get why Kerry didn't speak of this in 2004 - and was stunned when I sent text of the April MO speech, the NYU speech and the University of Pennsylvania speech. All in line with the 2006 speech, all labeled major policy speeches by the nominee of Democratic party. There were op-eds in both the WP and NYT, remarking that although liberals had typically been the ones with the idealist foreign policy, it was Bush, who was idealistic and Kerry merely pragmatic - both making the point that idealistic, of course sells better.

In fact, Kerry's foreign policy world view is also idealistic and the same themes are there even in his Yale 1966 speech or the end of his Senate testimony in 1972. Kerry has been better than anyone I can think of in articulating an alternative (sane)idealistic, moral philosophy to the neo con one. (Here's a link to his AFghanistan speech this week - http://www.sais-jhu.edu/) or listen to this short, informal Utube from a MA forum - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXd66eae9K8 ) It was never true that Kerry didn't have an articulate, idealist foreign policy POV.

The problem was that many people covering foreign policy in typically liberal, Democratic leaning, papers were on the neo-con side of the axis. This hurt because people reading anything attempt to factor in the expected bias. A slightly negative article in a source that people expect to be positive is deadly - where if the expectation was that the POV would be negative, an article that was only slightly negative would seem neutral or even somewhat helpful.

Now, Kerry won't be the nominee, but assuming that the Democratic team will reject the neo-con ideas, how can they get past the perception that even their media "allies", like Klein, the NYT and the WP are less than impressed?

[spanone]

7. professing means nothing....

[KharmaTrain]

8. It's Used Like A Tool

Joke Line plays the same game Tweety and Russert play. They feign that in a past life they were a Democrat or that they still have some "Democratic blood" in them and this gives them the "moral authority" to speak for Democrats...especially when it comes to bashing Democrats.

Klein was long-ago exposed as playing a faux "liberal" to justify passing along right wing spin and talking points. He was a master at bringing up a point then showing how Democrats were weak to that point and then pass judgement that since he represents a "liberal" viewpoint his criticism and the talking points are valid. For years this con game worked...got him a nice paycheck and on the TV talk shows. Then Glenn Greenwald came around...

:hi:

[loyalsister]

9. He must be kind of like a Yuppie

He also wrote a book called "Woodie Guthrie: A Life"