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Can you imagine if people like Klein were around when he constitution was being written? One of the guiding principles of it would be:
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If a group of people are involved in committing war crimes, and at least one of them gets away with it, then they should all get away with it.

Joe Klein

When politicians talk about spending their political capital, they are talking about their poll numbers — and the cliché is somewhat misleading. They are actually investing their political capital, hoping for a greater return if their gamble succeeds. George W. Bush invested his capital in privatizing Social Security, and the stock tanked. Barack Obama is investing in health-care reform.
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What should the President have done?

Hmmm…what should the President have done?
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Let’s see here, what did you say that Democrats should have done when Geoge W. Bush was proposing privatizing Social Security before the greatest financial collapse in seventy years, Joe Klein?
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I know! We can do this magical thing called “using the Google” to look up what highly paid political pundits have written in the past! What do we get from five seconds of searching?

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1025086,00.html
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Joe Klein – The Incredible Shrinking Democrats (Sunday, Feb. 06, 2005)
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[Democratic leader Harry] Reid’s claim that George W. Bush would reduce Social Security benefits 40% was hogwash. The President has merely stated the obvious, that reductions will be necessary. Reid also made the absurd comparison between Bush’s very conservative investment-account proposal and Las Vegas gaming tables. Finally, there was the boorish and possibly unprecedented hooting of the President by Democrats during the speech.
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“No! No! No!” they shouted, inaccurately, when Bush asserted that the Social Security trust fund would, in a decade or so, start paying out more money than it takes in. If nothing is done, it surely will.
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Bush’s private investment accounts, combined with a reduction in benefits or higher taxes, is one way for baby boomers to lighten the burden of our retirement upon our children. There are other ways, but none without pain. A far more profitable—and absolutely necessary—reform would be a market-oriented overhaul of Medicare, but Dems just say no to that too.

So when George W Bush was investing his political capital in privatizing Social Security, and the stock tanked –what an appropriate metaphor for the problem with that policy scheme– you were arguing forcefully in the pages of Time Magazine for Democrats to shut up and go along with Bush’s privatization plans, lest they appear “boorish” opposing the ultimately tanked plan.
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Comparing the investment of Social Security funds individually in market securities products (those now infamous mortgage-backed securities, perhaps?) to gambling in Vegas was “absurd“, you sternly warned Democrats.
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What brilliant political advice!
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…and what wise, knowledgeable policy advice, Joe Klein.
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Perhaps you might want to revisit your own record on these matters, and explain to your readers how wrong your were about supporting Bush’s lunatic, Iraq invasion-scale ideological stupidity of privatizing Social Security, and how wrong you were about proposing “absolutely necessary—reform would be a market-oriented overhaul of Medicare“, Joe Klein, before you give any politician –or anybody reading you at all, for that matter– any more advice about anything.
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If “George W. Bush invested his capital in privatizing Social Security, and the stock tanked“, and you were right there at the time scoffing at Democrats’ truthful, realistic objections, and admonishing them for looking so bad politically in their vigorous opposition, then why should anybody take anything you have to say about what Obama or the Democrats should or shouldn’t do seriously now, Joe Klein?

The scary part is Obama, “the Rookie”, is only 8 months into his Presidency. The next scary thing, we have 40 more months to go.
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Getting the “balls” to lead and make decisions is not a strong suit for Obama, hate to break that to you Klein. He is not only a rookie but he had absolutely NO EXPERIENCE what-so-ever before being elected President.
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A less than one term Senator? Yes? No experience outside of politics, none.
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He does have, and you can clearly see his Community Organizing experiences. He has brought on board in his Administration, Van Jones. The “Green Jobs Czar”, and avowed Communist to run this particular part of his Administration.
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http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/07/green_jobs_czar_van_jones_is_a.php
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What say you Commrade Klein?

Hopefully Obama doesn’t screw it all up so bad that we will never recover from it all.

More on Van Jones. Obama’s “Community Organizing Green Jobs Czar”.
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http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/loudon-obama-appoints-former-communist-to-white-house-green-job/
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http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108441
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http://www.aconservativevoicetoday.com/2009/09/van-jones-communist-and-obama-advisor.html

Here we go again, I wish that all journos were forbidden from discussing poll numbers. While it might appear a useful fact on which to hang your faulty analysis, when you don’t understand the internals of a poll then you don’t know what the topline numbers are telling you. Now, you might have all the experience as a journalist Joe but polling is in my wheel house and all you are doing is parroting a narrative that at best is misleading.
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The internals of these polls, which are only a snap shot in time, show that the decline is as much the result of Democratic dissatisfaction with the President not slamming the GOP for telling these outright lies, (yeah see there we can say it lies) or signaling he was dropping the public option as it is the result of outright confusion. Just because the right wing says that it means the public doesn’t support health reform doesn’t make it so. In fact, while they have succeeded in confusing the public because all the media will cover thoroughly is the train wreck, if the public were responding to their message their numbers would have budged and they haven’t. not one iota! Of course, if you really understood polling you would know that for yourself and wouldn’t have to rely on the misleading interpretations of those with an agenda. (Anytime you want a tutorial let me know I’m in the DC area I would be happy to school you).
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It’s funny, your article is premised on the concept that all new President’s make mistakes but the best one’s learn from them quickly — I can’t argue with that assessment. Unfortunately, What is it that all journalists do regardless of their tenure? I’ve noticed during 2008 you pundits got it wrong nearly every time, including how you interpreted polls, or understanding the public’s response to events, yet you none of you have learned anything from them — not even humility (except of course for David Corn, who prefaces every comment with the acknowledgement that white house soothsayers knocked out of the park during the campaign while everyone else got it wrong so he hesitated to second guess them). The media repeatedly makes the same mistake, insane I know, perhaps that’s why your industry is circling the drain.

The President can’t say he wants to look forward, not backward, then allow his Attorney General to look backward. … Is it right for the interrogators to be prosecuted and the real miscreants — people, like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who ordered, and still approve of, the torture — to escape unpunished? … [T]his is a presidential decision the President avoided.
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This is not a logical passage. The AG is not under the control of the president, as you know. What’s more, if you agree with the idea that accountability for crimes committed by political elites is a bad idea, then what’s it matter to you if torture supervisors like Cheney get off scot free?
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There is no market for centrism-uber-alles punditry anymore. The “Democrats must cower before the tough manly Republicans” storyline has gotten real, real old in the last five years.
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There is a market and a need for reporting like the great work you’ve done lately from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Pentagon. (It’s not like you’re Cokie Roberts or anything, sheer dead weight collecting a paycheck because your parents knew the right people in 1975.) There is a market and a need for Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald-style fact-based opinion columns.
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There is no market and there is no need for this kind of politics-as-dinner-theater (or restaurant criticism). No one cares if you think the president should gain or lose style points for differing with his AG; the question is, are the decisions right on the law and policy? Answering that question takes hard work and skepticism of sources.
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We don’t have the luxury of treating politics as infotainment anymore. We deluded ourselves that we did in the 1990s and early 2000s. We have found otherwise. Please do better than this; we know you can.

Yup, I’m sure Van Jones, from his position as a minor advisor to the president, is going to bring this country to ruin, leading the charge of tyranny and forcing all conservatives to quit their jobs (after their guns are confiscated, of course) and work as field hands on massive arugula farms powered by windmills, with Obama Youth members of AmeriCorps serving as whip-brandishing overseers.

Wingnut paranoia is so humorous. I just love how the party of tough guys so frequently expose themselves as a bunch of bedwetters. Maybe y’all can get together with Glenn Beck for a session of screaming and whining and fearmongering, followed by a gusher of crocodile tears as you cry, “I want MY country back!”

Just wondering….those former commies like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz – since they are leading intellectual lights of the neo-conservative movements, should we worry about our nation falling victim to Stalinist tyranny if they return to power? And surely, their kids, Bill and John (respectively), must have picked up some of their dads’ commie tendencies, right?

And how is anybody supposed to take seriously somebody who links to WorldNetDaily to support their, “Obama is the next Stalin!!!”, paranoia?

The internals of these polls, which are only a snap shot in time

So are elections! Are the lies of the campaign can’t overcome the reality of getting things done in the light of day.

Wait, freeinpa…when Obama was talking about all of things he wanted to see in healthcare reform during the campaign – ie, virtually the same things he’s still saying (except for the fact that he’s actually toned down his support for a public option) – that was all a dream? Should I expect to see Bobby Ewing in the shower tomorrow morning when I wake up?

But what you must admit to oglib, is that had this been taking place back in the early Spring and Obama said “the sky is pink with shades of chartreuse”, the rose colored glass wearing liberals from the far left you are clearly en-camped with would be saying “oh, isn’t that pretty”.
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Instead, Obama is falling….falling….falling into oblivion. Where he stops, nobody knows.
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Yes indeed, “Change we can believe in”!!!

Nicely done. Not that it will put a dent in Joe Klein’s armor of ignorance.

Couldn’t agree with you more Klein. I was just thinking yesterday about how ridiculous this whole debate has become. The is no doubt that the American people support the general principles behind health care reform. If Obama had stuck to those principles, as you suggest in your column, it would have forced Republicans into the position of arguing against lowering health costs and arguing for practices like denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. It sounds gimmicky, but Obama should have used the “Bill of Rights” or “Contract with America” nonsense which contained irrefutable universally held principles. Also, how come forcing health insurance companies to be non-profit has never been discussed?

Actually, if I recall correctly, the poll numbers do not actually say support for Health Care reform is dropping, just that support for this version of the bill are falling. If you combine the number of people who say they should continue working on the current bill and the number who say they should start over and continue working on Health Care reform, the totals are well into the 70s still.

nice article joe. good point about the rookie mistakes.