Joe Klein

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/8/8/73014/72275

Good For Joe Klein

by BooMan
Sun Aug 8th, 2010 at 07:30:14 AM EST


I've been pretty rough on Joe Klein over the years, so I want to pause to praise him for his latest article, which concludes with this heartfelt apology:

As for myself, I deeply regret that once, on television in the days before the {Iraq} war, I foolishly — spontaneously — said that going ahead with the invasion might be the right thing to do. I was far more skeptical in print. I never wrote in favor of the war and repeatedly raised the problems that would accompany it, but mere skepticism was an insufficient reaction too. The issue then was as clear as it is now. It demanded a clarity that I failed to summon. The essential principle is immutable: we should never go to war unless we have been attacked or are under direct, immediate threat of attack. Never. And never again.

There are dozens of other pundits who we're still waiting to hear apologize, but now we can strike Joe Klein off that list.

Klein's article:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2008733,00.html#ixzz0w0qY3Z9m

Iraq: Requiem for a Profound Misadventure

[karynnj]

1. Nice that he said this - but he actually was more bellicose than he

says in his apology. Even into 2004, he spoke of having been changed by 911 when people from his town - Ridgewood, NJ - were killed. He had one piece that savaged liberals who didn't understand that 911 changed everything.

The fact is that very few in the press amplified the words of those speaking against going to war. Moyers' documentary on this was not perfect, but it does show that the media was completely derelict in raising issues. The period in which Klein spoke of it being the right thing to do was AFTER the inspectors were in and found nothing, AFTER Saddam destroyed questionable missiles, AFTER the AEIE was reporting there were no weapons of mass destruction. This was 5 months after the Congress voted which was before any of these things had happened.

It is good that he has apologized and understandable that he would attempt to mitigate what he apologizing for. The fact is that the media both led the stampede to invade and was itself stampeded to lead the public to favor going to war. Now politicians had greater responsibility, but the media as a whole played a mayor role here - likely making it impossible to stop Bush. Enough people - including nearly all the Republican base favored it so there was little risk to Bush in going.

The media (other than Moyers) has been very slow to really analyze their own roles. (Here especially the NYT and WP are guilty and they unfortunately are read by most of official DC. Judy Miller likely did as much to give politicians the opinion that they could not reject the possibility that there were WMD than the President did. (You can read the IWR statements of people like Kennedy and Feingold and see that they did not reject the possibility - they did correctly vote against the IWR. )

The invasion of Iraq was wrong and there are many because of their positions as politicians or media who did the wrong thing, many thinking they were doing the right thing or following the mood of the time. It is good that many have admitted that they were wrong. Yet, the real blame will always be George Bush's and that of his administration.

[Martin Eden]

2. OK, maybe I won't refer to him as Joke Line anymore ...

... but I'm still not in a forgiving mood for anyone who failed to stand up and unequivocably oppose that colossal strategic blunder war crime.