Pundit Putz

by digby

Atrios linked today to a very insightful post by the man who wrote “What Liberal Media?” I urge you to read the whole thing if you are interested in the cozy, insider nature of political reporting you see coming out of Washington. Nobody gets it better than Alterman.

Alterman wrote a similarly insightful column last week in which he took mushy triangulator Joe Klein to task for his insulting mischaracterization of liberals and the facts, even as he plays a “liberal” columnist on TV and in the pages of TIME:

Among the most egregious offenders against journalistic standards and simple honesty for the purpose of abusing liberals is Time’s Joe Klein, who is, amazingly, the most liberal commentator currently employed by America’s highest-circulation newsweekly. (Klein’s animus toward liberals coupled with his cavalier treatment of inconvenient facts could hardly be in greater contrast to that of Newsweek’s high-profile liberal columnist Jonathan Alter, whose solid reporting and tempered idealism serves as a kind of remnant and reminder of the long-defunct liberal Establishment.)

To take just one recent example, a Klein column posted January 8 accused Democrats of “playing too fast and too loose with issues of war and peace.” Now look who’s talking:

Klein writes, “The latest version of the absolutely necessary Patriot Act, which updates the laws regulating the war on terrorism and contains civil-liberties improvements over the first edition, was nearly killed by a stampede of Senate Democrats.” In fact, this “stampede” was led by four Republicans.

Klein writes, “A strong majority would favor the NSA program…if its details were declassified and made known.” In fact, when an Associated Press poll asked Americans if the Bush Administration should be required to get a warrant before wiretapping, 56 percent answered affirmatively.

Klein writes, “Until the Democrats make clear that they will err on the side of aggressiveness in the war against al-Qaeda, they will probably not regain the majority in Congress or the country.” This statement ignores that the Bush Administration diverted resources from capturing bin Laden and destroying Al Qaeda to send them to Iraq, where no such threat existed but where one has since been created. It also ignores the fact that Republicans received a minority of the Congressional vote in 2004, as well as in the presidential votes of 2000, 1996 and 1992.

Joe Klein is everything that is wrong with the allegedly liberal punditocrisy. His anachronistic establishment politics are wrongly seen by many, including many elected Democrats, as the “reasonable” middle ground for which we must strive in order to attract some ephemeral centrist voter who exists only in their imaginations. He is the embodiment of the now wholly irrelevant DLC experiment. With none of the down home common touch of Clinton or the earnest idealism of Gore, he is nothing but a big bowl of warmed over 90’s centrist hype in a time where battles lines are by necessity, sharply drawn. He’s the political equivalent of reruns of “Mad About You.”

Every time he is seen as representing any form of winning liberalism, we lose. He obviously hates real Democrats, the vast majority of whom do not agree with anything he has to say, and his hostility to what we believe contributes mightily to the disdain and fear that the Democratic establishment feels toward the grassroots. He represents nothing but the clubby little world of highly paid poltical pundits who have as much in common with average Americans as Madonna does.

And he is a thin-skinned prick. Here’s is his response to Altermann’s criticisms, via Alternet:

“Eric Alterman is simply not a serious person — and I’m writing about a very serious issue,” says Time columnist Joe Klein, in response to Eric Alterman’s recent ad hominem attack in The Nation, wherein he dubs Klein one of the mainstream media’s “most egregious offenders against journalistic standards and simple honesty.”

“I don’t want to address Eric’s remarks because they’re not worth addressing,” Klein says. “This guy just spews opinions without having any information or doing any reporting. You just did something Alterman has never done, for example, actually calling me to do some reporting!”

In the course of generally noting, “The punditocracy’s ignore-except-to-attack attitude toward liberals,” Alterman dissected a recent Klein column that Alterman claimed “accused Democrats” of playing too fast and too loose with issues of war and peace. He then criticized Klein for his perceived “animus toward liberals coupled with his cavalier treatment of inconvenient facts.”

“That’s typical of his essential narcissistic laziness,” Klein responds. “Alterman has been personally attacking me for years. It’s what he does instead of working … He’s so peripheral, I forget he’s in the business until someone calls or emails me his latest attack!”

[…]

“I’m not nearly as smart as Eric, to have opinions without bothering to report first,” Klein counters. “Instead let me react by speaking to the facts. After all, I’ve lived my life by seeking out facts and then reporting them. One advantage I think I have over other columnists is that I do reporting.”

Klein says he will “have a lot more to say on this (NSA) issue next week — but first I have to learn more about it.”

Asked for an example, Klein says, “The notion of calling it wiretapping is questionable, I think, although I’m still not entirely sure.

“People like me who favor this program don’t yet know enough about it yet,” he says, “Those opposed to it know even less — and certainly less than I do.”

According to Klein, the NSA employs a “powerful front-end computer program that can scan computers and cell phones and access all previous communications.” Then, he says, analysts look for patterns in the calls and emails.

“Once they’ve gone through that process,” he explains, “Then they go to the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) special court.”

In Klein’s analysis, “the liberals are reacting to this issue in their usual reflexive way. Meanwhile, George Bush and others in his administration are being very cynical.”

The political flap over the NSA actions, Klein says, could be easily resolved. “All that’s needed is an updating of the FISA Act or the Patriot Act.” But this is unlikely to happen, Klein believes, “because George Bush is spoiling for and creating a fight on this issue, since he thinks it’s a fight he will win in the court of public opinion.”

As for his fight with Eric Alterman, Klein’s willing to forfeit. “Who cares, really?” he concluded. “He’s written lots of inaccurate, foolish stuff about me before. It’s just silly. If it were someone who actually KNOWS stuff or caught me in an inaccuracy, then I’d be concerned. But Eric? He can say what he wants.”

Yes, well, there is no need for Klein to be concerned because he holds a very important perch as a faux liberal in the punditocrisy, a highly paid profession that specializes in pushing the “liberals are icky” meme that serves the Republicans so well. He’s a good lapdog “liberal” and he and all his lickspittle cohorts are killing us.

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