Richard Holbrooke

Touching comments, Best wishes to Mr. Holbrooke and his family but could you be more compromised? Dick Cheney has a heart attack and you mock him.

I wish Mr. Holbrooke a speedy recovery. I hope he gets better. I double the getting better hope for Mr. Cheney.

When?
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Ideologues and their need to make everything about hate.

“The most awkward membrane in the life of a journalist is the border between source and friend.”

While your heartfelt sentiment is admirable, with all due respect, Joe, why is the border ever crossed in the first place? How personal friendships with the powerful enhances your work is beyond me. Larger picture–if most of your social relations are with the powerful, doesn’t this not skew your sympathies, the prized objectivity of your craft?

When exactly did Mr. Klein mock Dick Cheney’s heart condition, rdw56?

I am sure Joe’s concerns for Mr. Holbrooke are heartfelt. I too wish him a full recovery.
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Stating his closeness to Mr. Holbrooke and his son’s career connection does certainly taint the perception of Klein’s objectivity.

jcapan–I’ve been reading your smug, self-righteous and deluded comments for several years now. This represents a new nadir for you. My friendship with Holbrooke wasn’t “necessary.” It didn’t do anything to advance my career. My career didn’t really need advancing. We became friendly 20 years ago, when most of my writing had nothing to do with Holbrooke’s area of expertise–although he certainly taught me a great deal about how diplomacy and foreign policy work. When he became my son’s advisor, and for a few years, boss, I stepped away from him journalistically. I didn’t quote him–and if I did, I usually identified him, especially here on Swampland, as a friend or as my son’s boss (same thing with Christopher Hill, who was my son’s boss in the Baghdad embassy, about whom I also demurred, even when he was being attacked unfairly). With a few exceptions I refrained from promoting Holbrooke’s career in print, even though my estimation of his skills is stratospheric. Obviously, he and I speak about Afghanistan. We would have done so, relentlessly, if he had never joined the Administration. That sort of talk is part of our friendship. As are our conversations about the Farrelly Brothers, Judd Apatow and the New York Knicks.
I suppose you think that (a) all my friends are powerful and (b) all friendships with powerful people are matters of manipulation and insider-training. They are not. They are, most often, simply friendships. The fact that you might think that my friendships are primarily transactional says more about you than it does about me. The fact that you’d even raise these concerns at this sort of moment says all I need to know about the quality of your own humanity…I wonder, does it also speak to the quality of your friendships?

“jcapan–I’ve been reading your smug, self-righteous and deluded comments for several years now.”
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Well, Joe, if that’s your reaction, then I can rest assured that I’ve been doing something right. See, b/c that’s how I see my role, however futile and limited it is. I’m not here to make guys like you feel comfortable. I daresay if more “journalists” had this approach to power, we wouldn’t be in the hole we’re in as a society.
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So, while I won’t deny that I’ve been hostile or, I’m sure far worse for villagers, unserious over the last few years, I think my 1st comment was, in fact, serious, going so far as to acknowledge your own genuine sentiment.
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And your response, after the initial & inimitable pique, sets some of my concerns at ease.
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As for my own humanity, you’ve struck me to the quick. I’ll set to work on restoring it at once.
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I’ll close with some comments about independent journalism by Jeremy Scahill, begging your forgiveness in advance as I’m sure they’re unserious:
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“I believe that the way independent journalists are most effectively able to conduct their work is by maintaining their independence from the powerful. I don’t hob-nob with the powerful. I don’t count among my friends executives or other powerful people. I think it’s important for independent journalists to not be beholden to any special interests whatsoever.
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On the flip side of that, it’s the role of independent journalists to embed themselves with the victims of U.S. foreign policy — in the case of U.S. journalists — or domestic policy. What I mean by that is to actually go out to where the people live who are most affected by these policies — be it Afghanistan or the slums of the United States. You have to be un-embedded from the powerful and you have to embed yourself with the disempowered, because I think part of our role as independent journalists is not only to confront those in power, but to give voice to the voiceless.”

Joe, I don’t question jcapan’s humanity. Smug and self-righteous is more of a description of what we receive from the pundocracy.
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As readers and viewers, we have every right to question the personal interaction that results from the Village culture. We have witnessed over the years the good old boy/girl relations.
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The state of our country doesn’t make the peasants in the mood for niceties.

“Hey look, Joe is wishing a friend speedy recovery– what a great opportunity to engage in self-congratulatory onanism and needle him for being the friend of someone powerful! That’ll stick it to the Man and show how -I- defend the little guy’s interests!”

That’ll stick it to the Man and show how -I- defend the little guy’s interests!”

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What does ‘the man’ have to do with it? It’s a matter of credibility and objectivity. Holbrook has been a darling of the press for two decades at the top of every list to be the next Secretary of state. That’s because he cultivated them using their ego’s and vanity. They even suggested GWB should name Holbrook Sec of State because the election was so close and liberals so upset. The man is an egomaniac with no discernable accomplishments except getting good press. Like Larry Summers he’s never worked well with others and his arrogance was such an issue in Afghanistan he was banned from the Presidential compound. That’s diplomacy. I hope he recovers in full. These comments are not about Holbrook but how impossibly compromised Klein has been for so long.

Obviously, he and I speak about Afghanistan. We would have done so, relentlessly, if he had never joined the Administration. That sort of talk is part of our friendship. As are our conversations about the Farrelly Brothers, Judd Apatow and the New York Knicks.

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The impression he wishes to leave is that these talks with Holbrook did not pull him left and into the Washington bubble. That’s absurd. Joe has been nothing more than a run of the mill elitist liberal who because he’s so obviously compromised had had minimal influence despite his very public perch. I’d argue he was part of the group that misunderestimated Bush over 4 elections paving the way for his victories. When the SBV thing broke the MSM told Kerry to ignore it. If they didn’t cover it we would not find out about it. Joe is one of many still enraged about it. The delicious irony for conservatives is that people like Joe Klein who call themselves journalist were actually major contributors to the election disasters of 2000 and 2004 because they are not journalist. Joe is a partisan activist with a column obviously in bed with the Democrat party.

I love this: “Holbrooke (pulled him left) and into the Washington bubble”. I think it is fair to say that quite a few others on this site view Joe’s friendship with Holbrooke as something that pulled him to the right.

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Fact is, international relations is an area that really doesn’t speak to conventional right-left dichotomies – which actually makes it incredibly refreshing in this day and age. Holbrooke’s greatest achievement – so far- are the thousands of lives that I believe he saved in hammering out the Dayton Peace accords that stopped the killing in the Balkans before it got any worse. At a time when the Democrats were feckless and the Republicans (and the British) even worse, Holbrooke engineered an agreement that brought the killings (if not the hostilities) to an end. If that is arrogance, give me more of it.

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In both Bosnia/Kosovo as well as Iran as well as Afghanistan, Holbrooke sought middle grounds that were attacked with equal measure from both the left and the right. That alone is enough to make him a hero in my book. In the end, he is an interesting example of a guy who is, yes, aggressive and a bit overbearing, but has made the made the world a bit of a better place.

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I must say, however, as someone who grew up down the street from the Farrelley brothers, what exactly Holbrooke’s position on them actually is.

Fact is, international relations is an area that really doesn’t speak to conventional right-left dichotomies – which actually makes it incredibly refreshing in this day and age.

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Fact isn’t, there are clear distinctions between right and left. Just for starters the right found Obama’s various apology tours embarrassing and stupid. His entire Foreign policy is a shamples as one would expect with that ditz at the state Dept.

Rather surprising you’d worship an investment advisor so tied into the meltdown as vice-chariman of a large private equity firm and director of AIG when it was engaging in the disasterous private equity swaps.

Klein has expressed nothing but contempt for Cheney at every opportunity for the last 5 years. Condolences to the family of Mr. Holbrooke. The NRO is reporting he has passed away.