Latest Column

Speaking of the last days:
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Having watched Obama’s press conference, I’m now being treated by MSNBC to the jocular presidential pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkeys. What a contrast.

BOB SCHIEFFER: How does [the Democratic presidential primary debate] play off against the pictures we saw this week of President Bush landing on the aircraft — aircraft carrier and appearing before these screaming, adoring groups of military people? As far as I’m concerned, that was one of the great pictures of all time. And if you’re a political consultant, you can just see campaign commercial written all over the pictures of George Bush.

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JOE KLEIN: Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day. That was the first thing that came to mind for me. And it just shows you how high a mountain these Democrats are going to have to climb. You compare that image, which everybody across the world saw, with this debate last night where you have nine people on a stage and it doesn’t air until 11:30 at night, up against Saturday Night Live, and you see what a major, major struggle the Democrats are going to have to try and beat a popular incumbent president.

And very good column, as usual.

Jeez, exile, that was just the first draft of history.
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If it makes Joe feel any better, plenty of other ostensibly liberal pundits, like Margaret Carlson, are now trying to walk back their silly comments on Mission Accomplished.

I certainly am glad that you now see the Bush for what he was. However, I wish that you had come to the point when e was wearing the flight suit.

Follow-up: will members of the Bush gang- Cheney, Feith, Yoo, Libby, Wolfowitz, Boulton, Schulsky, Perle, Gonzales, Addington, Rove… -be indicted and prosecuted for war crimes and treason? How soon?
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Yes, I’d feel personal vindication, but more than that, it would go a long way toward rebuilding respect for and faith in our government and her people. And we need to make sure that these abuses aren’t repeated by future administrations.

We have only one quarter of a president at this time.

Countdown:
http://newprez.com/index.jsp?key=20081126AM

We have only one quarter of a president at this time.

L’esprit d’escalier:
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We have only one hindquarter of a president at this time.

Is Bush the lamest lame duck ever? Since the WWII? It’s a bit scary to have a man with absolutely zero credibility still ostensibly in charge, and I wonder if this isn’t one of the big reasons Obama is keeping Gates at Sec Def.

I’ll take exception to just this: “It is in the nature of mainstream journalism to attempt to be kind to Presidents when they are coming and going but to be fiercely skeptical in between”
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When was the MSM fiercely skeptical of Bush? I know, you’ll be able to cite particular instances, especially after Katrina, which seemed to be the last straw. Mostly what I remember from the media is the lockstep of the herd.
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As to the bracing moment at Ground Zero, I recall that was after an agonizing time when the only leader of the free world seemed to be Rudy Giuliani (to his credit). Bush had to wait for his handlers to tell him what to do.

And if I may say: His biggest legacy, beyond the creative paralysis and the intellectual laziness, is the rampant illegality.
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I’m not meaning to harsh on the article, btw. I think it’s right on. Obviously I’ve still got a lot of anger issues.

Great piece, Joe! I loved this gem:
The flight-suit image is one of the two defining moments of the Bush failure. The other is the photo of Bush staring out the window of Air Force One, helplessly viewing the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. This is a presidency that has wobbled between those two poles — overweening arrogance and paralytic incompetence.
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That just completely and succintly sums it up: overweening arrogance and paralytic incompetence.

When was the MSM fiercely skeptical of Bush? I know, you’ll be able to cite particular instances, especially after Katrina, which seemed to be the last straw.

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Though let’s not forget this Katrina gem from Broder:
We cannot yet calculate the political fallout from Hurricane Katrina and its devastating human and economic consequences, but one thing seems certain: It makes the previous signs of political weakness for Bush, measured in record-low job approval ratings, instantly irrelevant and opens new opportunities for him to regain his standing with the public.

Joe. It is an excellent article. But thanks to the WayBack machine in Glenn’s desk we know that you didn’t always feel thus. Joe Klein’s extreme revisionism It would be best to come clean when you write this stuff and say: “boy was I wrong about this guy.” Doesn’t make you appear weak to admit error. The past did happen. As Glenn concluded:
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I’m glad that many people, including some journalists, seem to have learned some lessons from the Bush era now that he’s almost certainly the single most unpopular President in modern American history. People who regret their mistakes and learn from them should be welcomed and encouraged. But a vital aspect of what happened over the last eight years is the role the media — our leading media stars — played in glorifying and venerating George Bush, and that can’t be re-written or forgotten.

Truly learning from one’s mistakes — as opposed to wet-finger-in-the-air abandoment of previously revered leaders when they are revealed as failures and lose their power — requires, at the very least, an acknowledgment of one’s own role in what happened. There have been very few mea culpas from establishment media journalists, many — most — of whom, to this day, think they did nothing wrong (“It was all Judy Miller!”). As bad as this absence of remorse is, it is simply intolerable to watch those who cheered on many of the worst excesses try now to pretend that they were skeptical, adversarial critics all along. Journalists with influential platforms have responsibilities, the primary one of which is to be accountable for what they say and do.

Exile, do you have a link for that Broder quote?
Sully’s compiling the nominees for his Von Hoffman award for “stunningly wrong political, social, and cultural predictions”.

Joe,
It’s sad that the msm was so intent on lambasting Gore unfairly while swooning over Bush in 2000 or these last 8 nightmare years could have been avoided. Even if the msm decided to correct their mistake not do the same to Kerry and ginning up the Swiftboat lies, we could have been spared at least 4 of them.
The media thought having a dolt that people wanted to have a beer with was cute and so much more fun to cover then having a president with a brain and intellect.
The press never was critical or suspicious or skeptical of anything the Bushies did or said until the last year. By then, having an idiot run the white house was not fun anymore.
But, while you feel sorry for Bush, Joe, he is busy in his last days not implementing Obama’s economic plan to help stop the bleeding of the economy. Instead he is busy pushing through more deregulation for the oil industry in digging and polluting previously protected lands in the west and trying to make so Obama cannot roll those back once in office.
How sorry do you feel for the man now?

JOe Bftsplk, When is Sully going to publish these? I missed his blog the past couple days as I did not have much time on the computer.
He is one of my favorite writers online.

The real crime is this: the most important decisions are always the ones covered up in ambiguity. By manicuring your previous position, you prevent real understanding and learning. The answer is in diving back into that ambiguity and unpacking it item-by-item. In this task, Joe, you are part of the very serious problem and not the solution.

Once again you gave words to my frustration. Yes, Bush seems so lost. thank you for your writing.

@Joe Bftsplk

Here’s the Broder link.

I have to admit that, having observed the gusto with which journalists try to rewrite their own recorded positions, I know have a new skepticism of pretty much all recorded history.
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If professional journalists can’t even agree on what their own recorded thoughts and actions were a few years ago, how can we possibly believe that historical events have been recorded in a way that is remotely accurate?
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Was there a guy named Socrates? Probably. Was he sentenced to death? Possibly. Did he drink hemlock? Who knows. Good story though.

Was there a guy named Socrates? Probably. Was he sentenced to death? Possibly. Did he drink hemlock? Who knows. Good story though.

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Joe Klein v. 1: Well, that was probably the coolest execution since Cain killed Abel. That was the first thing that came to mind for me. And it just shows you how high a mountain Plato is going to have to climb. You compare that image, which everybody across the world saw, with one of his wooly-headed disciples teaching a bunch of spoiled Athenian kids, you see what a major, major struggle the other philosophers are going to have to try and be rememberd.

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Joe Klein v. 2: So I’ve been searching for valedictory encomiums. . . . I’d add the bracing moment of Socrates defeating the Sophists in front of the Parthenon, but that was neutered in my memory by his ridiculous, preening hemlock stunt in a toga. The hemlock drinking is one of the two defining moments of the Socrates failure.

JOE KLEIN: Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day.

Joe, your finger is always in the wind, and you’ll say whatever you have to say to curry favor with those in power, or those likely to come into power. You’re a boot-licking disgrace, and any reader who thinks they’re getting anything of value or substance from you simply doesn’t understand what you are.

No matter how pathetic Bush appears, I refuse to feel sorry for him. Words cannot describe how frustrating it is to those of us who knew he was a useless hack back in 2000. We’ve had to sit and watch him deconstruct the country piece by piece for 8 years without a care in the world. Now he can sit back and drink himself into oblivion knowing his oil buddies will forever protect him for sacrificing his reputation in the world to fill their pockets.

Joe is not alone on the walk back: a steady stream is following. Much to the chagrin of Morning Joe and Co Tweety made it a point of saying, and repeating that he sees it as part of his job to support the President-elect. No surprise; too many of the MSM thought it was their job to support George W. A vigilant press corps: that is supposed to be the practice.

It’s a good article Mr. Klein, although difficult to read. As you say, you never want to see the President of the United States looking that way.
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When did Bush become intellectually lazy? Why was it so hard for journalists (like you and others) to perceive that prior to the 2000 election? Can journalists only take a stenographer’s view of the present and a tail gunner’s view of the past?
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If there are no good answers (and maybe there aren’t), then Jefferson’s ‘necessity of a free press’ is either aspirational or has a large intrinsic time delay.

Joe, I really do think you ought to address the fact that were so wrong about Bush. You wrote that you thought he was better suited to be president in these times than Gore was. You gushed to Hugh Hewitt about what a great he was.

How can you expect us to take you seriously when you turned on a dime once Bush’s approval rating went below 40 percent?

I guess you don’t need a weathervane to know which way the wind blows.

I guess being a big time pundit means you never have to look back and examine your role in helping prop up the Bush administration.

I don’t know, Joe. I just can’t get here…
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I’ve been feeling sorry for Bush lately…

Bush may be the laziest president in American history. Looking back at his life, he ran just about everything he ever touched into the ground. And when he would end up at that inevitable place, there was Poppy or Poppy’s buddies to bail him out, sometimes, literally.
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The guy has never had to actually work or face difficulties himself. Someone has always taken care of things for him. He is hapless. And one imagines that given the economic mess he helped create, two wars, and a nation’s reputation in tatters, he just wants to get out of town and go back to being just simple, ol’ George, hangin’ out at the country club, knockin’ back a few cocktails with the boys.
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He has driven this nation into the ground. Only this time, the rest of the world has to clean up after him.

Barack Obama has assumed the Presidency through the paradox of true leadership. Obama’s quest was for change, not for power – and as a result received power – the paradox of leadership. ……….

http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/11/26/barack-obamas-leadership-paradox/

Uh . . . Joe?
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JOE!
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You’ve been called out for changing your story without admitting that you’ve changed your story.
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Yeah, people notice this stuff. You might want to say something at this point.

It’s interesting to watch people change positions in real time. I was surprised and very pleased to see a respectful column from our local RW curmudgeon in our local paper. A couple of weeks ago he was dismissing Obama pretty completely (gave a speech once), McCain was his man all the way. But now he heartily, strongly approves of Obama’s stimulus plan. Rebuild the economy fromt eh bottom up. I wonder if he recognizes that McCain’s stimulus plan would have been tax cuts, delivered by his Treasury Secretary Phil “Whiner” McGramm.
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It would be better if Joe realized that people would respect him more for explicitly stating that he was wrong about Bush, and what he has learned from the process.
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It would also be nice to have a magic wish pony.

Yeah, right, Joe. It is sad. Boohoo.
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Except that he is not the failure you describe. He is, in fact, a rousing success story. He delivered to the people who elected him. He stood for Jesus, American pie, the absolute supremacy of America and her might, stood against women’s choice, the queer homos, all that is unChristian and unAmerican. If everybody is not happy with the state of affairs now, it is just too damn bad. But he delivered what he said he would. Even the fact that he is a liar and his goon squad cabinet is corrupt is what he was and what people believed in, and what they got.

You’ve been called out for changing your story without admitting that you’ve changed your story.
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Yeah, people notice this stuff. You might want to say something at this point.
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He already has, in a couple blogs here. What do you want, him to flagellate himself in the town square?
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Or go on print and TV and repent? That won’t ever happen, because his Beltway friends will never do the same. Hell, they’ll never do much of anything except twist history and pretend they were always on the right page, like always. At least he conceded here.
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Frankly, I’m willing to bet a lot of regular folks, maybe even a lot of commentators here, are just as much Johnny-come-latelys on Bush just as much as Joe is.
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I still remember all the constant and repetitive tin foil hat and black helicopter cracks and accusations of lack of patriotism I got opposing the obvious farce that is Bush and the lies that were the Iraq War and its “mission” to find those wacky WMDs.
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Now all of the sudden everybody I step over in real life and the internets is such a vehement Bush critic and acts like they’ve been marching against the war since 2002.
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Funny that.

Joe Klein – this column rivals your “but but but FISA iz so hard to unnerstand!” moment of a few months back. This is terrible. Just awful. You praised this moron when it was fashionable to do so, when it was expected of people like yourself, one of the gatekeepers of the Village of D.C. Now you say you’ve been feeling sorry for him. Jesus H. Christ. Unbelievable. The man is a war criminal. and an unthinking, irrational buffoon, and a complete and utter FAILURE of a President. He’s failed the United States and the entire world, many times over, on just about every single issue of great importance . I can’t think of any reason why one should have any sympathy and/or empathy for this guy. I just can’t. He deserves every bit of scorn that is heaped upon him, in spades.
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You’re acting like a tool, Klein.
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And Greenwald owns you, to boot.