Joe Klein

Joe Klein is TIME's political columnist and author of six books, most recently Politics Lost. His weekly TIME column, "In the Arena," covers national and international affairs. In 2004 he won the National Headliner Award for best magazine column.

Articles from Contributor

In the Arena In the Arena

Obama’s Great Luck

Al Sharpton has now done a Sister Souljah on himself, relieving Obama of the necessity of saying that he finds Sharpton a race-hustling phony. Sharpton, obviously aggrieved by Obama’s good press, says

“Why shouldn’t the black community ask questions? Are we now being told, ‘You all just shut up?'”

No, just you, Al.

In the Arena In the Arena

Neoliberalism: The Actual Record

Well, everyone’s talking about the David Brooks column I mentioned below. Obviously, I think Matt Yglesias is on the right track and Atrios is careless and wrong .
In fact, the “liberal successes” of the Clinton presidency weren’t experienced–or much noticed–by academics and upper-income libs…but they sure were significant if you …

In the Arena In the Arena

The Neighbors

The photo-op summit in Baghdad this weekend reminded me of this column I wrote in April of 2003, even before Bush declared “Mission Accomplished.” I had been working for Time Magazine all of four months at that point, and various editors thought I’d gone off the deep end: The Bush Administration would never take part in a meeting of …

In the Arena In the Arena

Dead Again

Now, what on earth would motivate David Brooks–behind the Times firewall–to find common cause with some of the wilder voices in the blogosphere and declare neoliberalism, if that’s what you want to call it, dead? A few thoughts:

1. If moderate liberalism is dead, then the Democratic Party is chock-a-block with extremists.

2. If …

In the Arena In the Arena

Just Desserts

You could see this coming a mile away, and it’s appropriate pushback by the Democratic Party. The reason why you could see it coming was Fox’s outrageous treatment of Barack Obama, going back to the “madrasa” story–and Obama’s reciprocal treatment of Fox: he wouldn’t let the Fox crew on his charter plane the weekend he announced. It was …

In the Arena In the Arena

What to do About Iraq

As predicted, David Petraeus is refusing to play along with the administration’s scenario regarding the surge. The only thing we are likely to know about the new tactics by August is if they’re not working. My guess is, the reports will be inconclusive: some quieter neighborhoods in Baghdad, but continued violence–especially in the ring …

In the Arena In the Arena

Financial Mud: A Users Guide

It doesn’t seem to me that there is much more than a tiny, indistinct tendril of smoke emanating from the story about Obama’s finances in the Times today. I hope we’re not in for a sustained gloop of such pieces this year, but if we are let me raise a few points:

1. You won’t read many coming from me. They’re boring, impenetrable–I …

In the Arena In the Arena

Slander

I guess I’m getting old and slower, but I can’t tell whether this, from Yglesias, is ironic or not. Certainly hope so…

Because what I was thinking about was incidents like this one, in which we were introduced to General William Boykin:

Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, “I knew my

In the Arena In the Arena

Kudos…

to my colleague Scott McLeod for apparently shaming the U.S. State Department into granting a visa to Abdulkarim Soroush, one of the most revered reform interpreters of the Qu’ran in the Islamic world.

I met Soroush several years ago, and he is truly a saintly fellow, who has suffered mightily at the hands of religious thugs in Iran. He …

In the Arena In the Arena

Because I promised and you seemed so darn curious…

A right-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:

–believes that America is always, in every instance, the ultimate force of moral authority in the world.

–believes that Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11—even if not directly, he was just that sort of guy.

–sees transnational …

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