TIME Goes Unhinged

by digby

I have to say that I’m kind of enjoying Swampland, TIME‘s attempt to ape The Corner with Ana Marie Cox, Joe Klein, Jay Carney and Karen Tumulty. But I’m a little bit concerned that Joe Klein is travelling in company that’s going to embarrass him with its intemperate and provocative language.

Joe is going to have to have a talk with the fellow blogger who wrote this:

Condi at the Foreign Relations Committee:

“The Iraqis have developed a plan…and we will support that plan.”

The most blatant nonsense in the President’s speech was that we’re just supporting an Iraqi plan to escalate. Now Condi’s doing it. Disingenuous and insulting.

Oh my. Hugh Hewitt is going to be fuming over that one.

How about this:

This dual escalation–in Iraq and, especially, against Iran–is the most reckless thing I’ve ever seen an American President do. God help us.

Using the hysterical, liberal word “reckless” sounds unserious to me. Shouldn’t this blogger be using more measured tones?

And Joe is surely going to have to have a talk with the blogger who typed this immoderate blast:

The absolute worst moment of President Bush’s dreadful speech last night was when he threatened to take action against Syria and Iran…

Now he appears to have done so, attacking the Iranian consulate in Irbil. This is an outrageous escalation–very similar to Richard Nixon’s attack on Cambodia, late in the Vietnam war. Bush has been trying to provoke the Iranians into a shooting war for the past month–detaining Iranian diplomats in Baghdad, sending an additional carrier battle group to the Gulf. The Iranians have ignored the provocations, but one wonders how long they will and how they might respond. More support for the rogue wing of Muqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army? A Hezbollah terrorist attack against us?

For those who didn’t think things could get much worse, well, good morning.

It sounds as though this person is accusing the president of setting up a phony cassus belli for war with Iran. That kind of obnoxious rhetoric is what makes the real Americans in this country mistrust the angry left. It’s one thing to have disagreements with the administration, it’s quite another to accuse them of lying and acting in bad faith. There can be no serious bipartisan agreements among centrists of good will with this kind of talk coming from the left.

The Washington editor of TIME.com is going to have to have a chat with her bloggers — this could get out of hand. Joe Klein is not going to put up with offensively imprudent rhetoric on his blog for very long.

Update: Another Swampland blogger broke the primary journalistic unwritten rule by pointing out that St John McCain might just be being a wee bit disingenuous:

“I’d much rather lose a campaign than lose a war.”

It’s true, Jay, that few people doubt McCain sincerely believes in what he is advocating. But when he first took this position of calling for more troops, it was something of a free shot for him: It didn’t look all that risky politically, because Rumsfeld was still running the Pentagon, and nobody thought Bush would actually do it.

Ooopsie. Somebody let the cat out of the bag that St John took a phony position he thought would cover him politically as long as nobody took him seriously. That’s not supposed to be noticed or commented upon by respected media people. Only the filthy hippie bloggers on the left even whisper such things. Joe Klein is going to be furious at this lack of civility at TIME.com.

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