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Klein points to ‘evidence of a severe character defect’

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Yesterday, we talked about John McCain losing the NYT’s Thomas Friedman, thanks to a series of utterly ridiculous energy-policy proposals. Today, let’s look at John McCain losing Time’s Joe Klein.

I’ve teased Klein a bit for misjudging McCain. After all, as recently as April, Klein predicted that McCain would avoid the cheap and pathetic style of campaigning we’re seeing now. McCain, Klein said, “sees the tawdry ceremonies of politics — the spin and hucksterism — as unworthy.” If he doesn’t, “McCain will have to live with the knowledge that in the most important business of his life, he chose expediency over honor. That’s probably not the way he wants to be remembered.”

Klein has come a long way since then. Noting McCain’s reluctance to condemn Jerome Corsi’s hatchet-job, and McCain’s support for Joe Lieberman’s smear this week, Klein doesn’t seem to recognize McCain anymore.

I know that people like me are supposed to try to be fair…and balanced. (The Fox mockery of our sappy professional standards seems more brutally appropriate with each passing year.) In the past, I would achieve a semblance — or an illusion — of balance by criticizing Democrats for not responding effectively when right-wing sludge merchants poisoned our national elections with their filth and lies. And it is true, as John Kerry knows, that a more effective response — and a bolder campaign — might have neutralized the Swiftboat assault four years ago. It is also true that Corsi’s book this time is far less effective than his Swiftboat venture, since it doesn’t come equipped with veterans willing to defile their service by telling lies to camera.

But there is no excuse for what the McCain campaign is doing on the “putting America first” front. There is no way to balance it, or explain it other than as evidence of a severe character defect on the part of the candidate who allows it to be used. There is a straight up argument to be had in this election: Mcain has a vastly different view from Obama about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action…you name it. He has lots of experience; it is always shocking to remember that this time four years ago, Barack Obama was still in the Illinois State Legislature.

Apparently, though, McCain isn’t confident that conservative policies and personal experience can win, given the ruinous state of the nation after eight years of Bush. So he has made a fateful decision: he has personally impugned Obama’s patriotism and allows his surrogates to continue to do that. By doing so

koupit-pilulky.com

, he has allied himself with those who smeared him, his wife, his daughter Bridget, in 2000. Those tactics won George Bush a primary–and a nomination. But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency. We’ll see if the public decides to acquiesce in sleaze in 2008, and what sort of presidency–what sort of country–that will produce.

One gets the distinct impression that Klein isn’t mad at McCain, he’s disappointed in him.

And like Friedman yesterday, it’s worth noting that there seems to have been an evolution in Klein’s thinking. He spent much of the campaign defending McCain’s integrity, and giving McCain the benefit of the doubt, up until it reached the point at which this was no longer possible.

It was evident a few weeks ago, after McCain said Obama “would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” Klein responded:

This is the ninth presidential campaign I’ve covered. I can’t remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.

Which was followed soon after by this:

A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong. I used to think, as David Ignatius does, that McCain’s true voice was humble and moderate, but now I’m beginning to think his Senate colleagues may be right about his temperament.

Which was followed by another item soon after on the inanity of McCain’s attacks against Barack Obama. Klein’s headline read, “The Scum Also Rises.”

Everything I said yesterday about Friedman applies equally well to Joe Klein — it’s hard to gauge the size of the Klein voting bloc; I suspect it’s fairly small. That said, Klein is very influential in the political media and DC establishment, and his obvious disappointment with McCain’s scurrilous tactics may help drive home a simple truth: the presumptive Republican nominee will say or do anything to win.

Comments

  • TomB

    says:

    I suspect that your observation of Klein’s and Friedman’s credibility with their colleagues will mean that journalists will be the most important consituency here. Their words may cause other reporters and pundits to rethink the established image of McCain and to re-examine his character. Hopefully it won’t be too little too late.

  • Racer X

    says:

    Eh. I think some of the bobbleheads know McCain is likely to lose (just look at the electoral map numbers rather than the national polls) and they’re just hedging their bets. The moral indignation is welcome, but I would suspect it would still be hidden away if the McCain campaign wasn’t such a trainwreck.

    Klein says: “Those tactics (Rove’s “illigitimate black baby” smear against McCain in 2000) won George Bush a primary–and a nomination. But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency.”

    To which I say Bullshit.

    Bush wasn’t slowly poisoned spiritually by Rove’s tactics after the 2000 election, Bush has been an asshole all his life, and as such he was the happy beneficiary of Rovian politics all the way back into Texas, where he built them into what they are with the help of his criminal friends at Enron. Bush was rotten to the core long before he even met Rove.

    Joke Line still doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

  • Stevio

    says:

    Joe Klein had fallen from my graces (big deal eh?) for being such a light weight and right leaning weeny for awhile. I guess if he and Friedman are fed up the “rest ” of these psudo journalists are not far behind. McAce isn’t helping himself on any level so it become fun to watch the McCain Lovers of America Club wilt on the vine…

  • Steve

    says:

    Klein’s voting bloc is, indeed, on the smallish side—as is Friedman’s and all the other right-leaning pundits. But as they discover that their journalistic hip-waders aren’t enough to keep McCain’s sleaze out, they’re slowly—if ever so slowly—beginning to turn away from him. One vote here; two votes there; a handful over yonder brings yet again the simple wisdom that a tsunami begins with a single drop of water, and an avalanche must, by default, always have its first snowflake.

    McCain is typical of the pending victim of these natural forces—a fool who doesn’t heed the tsunami warning, but finds himself on the beach as the wall of water looms over his head, moments from snuffing him from the record of the living, tends to babble very incoherently….

  • neilt

    says:

    Nice to see Klein coming around to the good side again. I agree with TomB, I think Klein’s constituency is other journalists who might start covering this thing in a coherent fashion.

    Even when things were at their worst (with regards to the media not covering McCain’s faults) I thought that they’re just trying to keep this thing close until the conventions, then they’ll start hammering home how incompetent McCain is. I think that’s starting to happen in earnest.

    one other minor thing: Why is being a state Governor adequate experience, but state legislator is woefully inadequate?? Even if you buy into the whole “a governor is an executive” argument, then fine – what makes a US Senator more experienced than a state one? It’s the height of absurdity.

  • muffler

    says:

    The debates will be the beginning of the end for one of them. My bet is that McCain will look old, ill-informed and feeble next to Obama. I suspect that the McCain team will screw up the makeup (sound familiar) and that he will have to resort to generalities and canned statements since his recall and command of the facts is failing.

    Be prepared to re-read the transcripts because the Bobble Heads (as well described) are already meeting to define the message agenda and spin. All the angles are being covered and defined.

  • Lance

    says:

    “But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency.”

    Racer X, the Bushite Presidency is not the same thing at Boy George II. BGII is a spoiled child, the product of Barbara’s incompetent parenting, alcohol and cocaine, and being bailed out of repeated failed business ventures. But he came in to the White House with the opportunity to actually recruit good people and achieve some good, and after 9/11 he could have had the World on our side.

    He failed in both cases in part because he surrounded himself with the greatest sleeze merchants of all time, who slowly drove out any competent person for fellow sychophants (that’s the scandel of the U.S. Attorney firings. Those were ‘good’ Republicans that were fired.). And it was those sleeze merchants who won him the South Carolina primary and the 2004 election.

    That John Sidney McCunt doesn’t see the lesson here is what Klein is saying.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    Racer X:

    (just look at the electoral map numbers rather than the national polls)

    I wish I could say I found this more consoling, but I faithfully follow electoral-vote.com and for the past two weeks the margin in Obama’s favor has been consistently slipping from where he was well into the 300s and had a 100 EV margin on McSame to now when he is in the 280s and has a mere 40 EVs on McSame.

    The Obama campaign is not hitting on all cylinders right now, and that is a real problem when you have to play against the other team and the refs (the media). Hopefully the Freidman/Klein changes of heart are a sign we may only have to beat the other team in the end.

  • unfriendlyfire

    says:

    Joe Kline’s voting bloc is indeed small, for an obvious reason – most Republicans don’t know how to read. This also explains the popularity of right-wing maggots on talk radio.

  • wvng

    says:

    I also approve of Klein’s speaking out. But I woner if he will speak out the same way when on the teevee and, if he does, if he will be invited back.

  • wvng

    says:

    In the meantime, only Keith O. is covering McCain’s foreign lobbyist scandal. h/t Jed.

    Aug. 13: Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter discusses Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili’s suggestion that John McCain is more talk than action.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26186565#26186565

    Aug. 13: Syndicated columnist Clarence Page talks about the credibility of John McCain’s stance on the Russia/ Georgia conflict.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26186592#26186592

  • chrenson

    says:

    I think the whole issue of Rovian politicking vs. civil discourse gets to a core difference between republicans and democrats. Democrats, with our penchant for intelligent debate, prefer the application of reason to meet most challenges. Republicans generally blame “the others” for everything that goes wrong, talk nasty to anyone who will listen, and absolutely refuse to examine themselves save through the righteous mirror of God’s forgiveness.

    Compare any liberal blog to any conservative one and you’ll see a higher percentage of reasoned debate and lower percentage of name-calling, etc. on the liberal one. Sure there are anomalies. Even I’ve been guilty of name-calling, cursing, and rage-filled rhetoric. But, nothing compares to the shit-storm [see?] you’ll find on conservative radio and blogs. Nothing.

    It’s the way they deal with everything. Lash out! And lash again! It’s why the two party divide seems to get wider and wider. Each party appeals to a certain facet of the human mind: reason and fightin’.

  • eric

    says:

    I think most of you are misjudging the impact of this shift. Unless McCain does something to redeem himself (and I think that is unlikely given that he MUST tear Obama down), JK and TF are forever gone.

    The larger import is that now other commentators (slowly) have to acknowledge what JK and TF have said. More precisely, when JK and TF actually appear on tv programs, lesser lights will not likely challenge the opinoins of these paragons of neo-liberal / Washington Consensus wisdom. Sure, the Fox-heads can disavow this stuff. However, it becomes more challenging for the Dowds and the Hiatts and the like to ignore the arguments made by men (particularly TF) who is considered one of the leading opinion makers of his generation. (That is a scary effing thought, but that, I think, is the perception.)

    This is not Krugman, who is perceived as shrill. This is not a former democratic consultant. These are men that gave legitimacy to the worst foreign policy failures of our time. They, I would submit, are not looking for redemption, but I think they are actually afraid of being monumentally wrong again. It is what passes for shame in that most limited of bubbles of our privilged opinion makers.

  • danimal

    says:

    Do not underestimate the power of Joe Klein and Thomas Friedman. They may be operating out of a sense of career opportunism along with moral indignation, but they help shape the media narrative far more than most. By stating the obvious, that McCain is not the man of character he claim to be, they allow other pundits the space to echo the sentiment.

    Zeitgeist–look back to December 2007 and you will see the same criticism of Obama while he was behind by double digits. The Obama campaign realizes the election is held in November. Taking a week off on vacation in August (during the Olympics!) and preparing for the veep selection and Democratic convention is not a cause for the vapors. The cylinders need to be roaring in October/November, not now.

  • Marnie

    says:

    There are so many things in the Klein quotes that are proof of the effectiveness of Bushie’s implanting stupid where smart should have been, in so many of the leading voices of this nation, as well as others. Or more realistically, that the press should be religiously nonpartizan and nonpolitical.

    Duhyba, our Chicken Souled Crook-in-Chief, (interesting that today we find out that the women who was for a decade or more our Chef-in-Chief had a thousand times bigger balls than Bush) has been lying, cheating and stealing since he waltzed off with his investor’s money, when he left Harkins Savings. His two campaigns in Texas, as well as those of his fellow Bushie candidates, were brutal, and the Bushies certainly honed their lying and cheating skills there.

    Anyone who disbelieved the testaments of the men who served under Kerry in Vietnam and chose to believe the lies of the Shit Loaders, did so because they consciously chose to believe liars, and consciously chose to ignore the truth.

    But then Duhyba’s whole adult live is nothing more than lies and denials and a desperate, now murderous, quest for self glory. Anyone who believed or still believes his lies does so because they knowingly choose to believe lies, and have fed their delusions in the blood of innocents.

    It is not so much a wanna-be Roi de Soleil who is at fault, as the fools who chose to believe in him and pandered his lies and his brutalities, to put and keep him in the highest state and national offices this nation offers – for 4 terms.

  • SD Progressive

    says:

    Hey, RX, (Post #4)

    Does your final comment mean that Kline can trip over his own butt hole?

    Just wondering!

  • howard

    says:

    the single most interesting thing that klein says here is that he felt obligated to the “illusion” of balance.

    you can’t ask for a more revealing example of what’s wrong with our pundit class.

    and as far as i’m concerned, klein needs to serve years of probation before i take him seriously.

  • Micheline

    says:

    Zeitgeist,

    Please check out the website fivethirtyeight. Poblano’s website. It is still more accurate. I understand what you mean by Obama not attacking harder. I wish he would. I hope this vacation will get him back

  • Gregory

    says:

    Apparently, though, McCain isn’t confident that conservative policies and personal experience can win, given the ruinous state of the nation after eight years of Bush.

    You don’t say, Joe.

    There is a straight up argument to be had in this election: Mcain has a vastly different view from Obama about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action…you name it.

    As Klein seems to tacitly acknowledge, the Republicans’ internal polling must indicate that, despite the press’ lickspittle attempts to be “fair and balanced,” McCain’s — and the Republicans’ writ large — “vastly different [views] about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action…you name it” are vastly unpopular. Of course McSame is smearing Obama — it’s an open admission he can’t win the kind of “straigh up argument” Klein seems to pine for.

    Props to Klein for acknowledging the painfully obvious at last, but it is about eight years of “fair and balanced” bullshit too late. I’ll bet Klein is just disappointed that the Republican tactics are too obvious for even him to ignore.

  • olo

    says:

    @ Racer X On Most days & Many Hours/Mins. AM&PM

    You’re getting too good to be limited to comments.
    If you don’t already have one, line up a blog slot somewhere & give us some deep thoughts.

  • Ronald

    says:

    Zeitgeist..one more piece of evidence the worm is turning in this Country. Like I said a few days ago, I don’t think the Electorate is going to put up with this kind of dirty B.S. anymore. At least I don’t think Klein will. I totally respect your cynicsm though and am glad you raise it often. I am usually very much a cynic but I admit I have drunk the Obama Koolaid. It’s nice to have you to keep me planted in the harsh realities of life.

  • jhm

    says:

    “[H]e has personally impugned Obama’s patriotism and allows his surrogates to continue to do that

    I take issue with the use of the word “allow.” I have no real problem believing that Hon. Sen. McCain is integrally involved with the more outrageous “impugnments,” but one doesn’t need to. It is hard to imagine any GOP candidate being able to stop the various factions within the party (from every echelon, not just the hoi polloi nut brigade) from engaging in this. Senator McCain would simply look weak if he publicly tried to stop these people and the effort proved to be utterly futile.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    CB: It seems like I remember you having the same expectations of McCain that Klein did — in April. It took him longer to be able to admit his mistake than it took you, but then you aren’t getting paid what he did.

    (And, btw, folks, why don’t more of you did what I did and drop some money on Steve, he deserves it.)

    To some of the commentators here: when someone comes over to our side, why blast him for past mistakes, the way you did Friedman and Klein? The important thing is that these people have a good deal of respect among an important segment of people (including a lot of people who would ordinarily be supporting McCain verbally and, more importantly, financially — not as big donors but as lower-level contributors). They’ll get them to think, and more importantly, to talk to people who’d never pay the slightest attention to us — especially to the more vitriolic of us. Give them some gratitude, not slaps in the face.

    (I still think the writer for Market Watch who blasted McCain harder than any campaign member could do will make a major impression, especially as McCain continues to shoot himself in the foot and begins his slide to Landonhood.)

  • lou

    says:

    “Character defect” is a broad stroke. Still waiting for a real analysis of the defect (s). Come on journalists, get to work on it and quit pussyfooting around the truth.

  • KRK

    says:

    If Friedman and Klein do have the ability to affect how the media views McCain, there just might be enough time between now and the debates for at least some scales to fall from some eyes regarding McCain’s defects (of character and otherwise), and we might actually get debate moderation and coverage that doesn’t cover for McCain’s confusion, mistakes, and double-talk.

    But I’m not counting on it.

  • Splitting Image

    says:

    “Friedman, Joe Klein?
    Coming to their senses?

    Who’se next? Krauthammer? Blitzer?”

    Blitzer.

    Krauthammer is a Project For the New American Century member. He’ll go down with the ship if he has to.

  • sniflheim

    says:

    For this conception to actually penetrate the consciousness of the average NYT or Post reporter would take about what it did last time–5 years of McCain.

  • Bruno

    says:

    @ 7 said;

    BGII is a spoiled child, the product of Barbara’s incompetent parenting, alcohol and cocaine, and being bailed out of repeated failed business ventures.

    I like that a lot. It puts the blame where it should have been put a long time ago. Not that Bush didn’t have enough chances to redeem himself AFTER he escaped Barbara.

  • Bruno

    says:

    WordPress screwed up… i checked my tags, and it read correctly, and that’s the result. Can’t post it again, because it says duplicate posting. sorry about the all capitals. It was supposed to be only Lance but that got cut off and the rest turned bold instead.