Our country and its workers were much better off when doing the best job possible was more important than having the best job possible.

It's not always that black and white.

I'm in the engineering field, and for a few $$$ more, many things could be improved, be closer to perfect. Trouble is, the client's budget does matter and does have to be taken into account.

Same reason why a $10,000 car may not be as well designed/tight as the $60,000 car. The same reason a $500 laptop may not be as good as a $2000 one. They both serve their purpose and not everyone can afford, nor needs the "better" one. The engineer (or any employee for that matter) who works on the cheap car/laptop hasn't sold out or settled, they're just filling a need. Their management has made a decision to meet a market, and I'm glad there are options that are affordable.

I used to work with an engineer that was great in his field. We were working on a public project that was financed by a bond. He was furious that we were doing something that was middle of the road when he had a pretty slick solution to the problem. There wasn't money in the budget for his solution, yet he still would argue and advocate with the officials about it in every meeting. They ended up getting very defensive, we almost lost the project, he was no longer allowed to deal with that client.

Can you imagine wanting to build a $300,000 home and having to argue with your contractor about "improvements" that would truly make the house better (more energy efficient, solar, etc.) that would double the budget, when you are already maxed out?

Sometimes other things come into play, that's all I'm saying.

My company kept promoting the good engineer, he really was smart and a hell of a lot more creative than I could ever be, but I was the one who was sent to deal with clients and I moved up, too. We had different skill sets.

Broder-Russert cabal would be telling us how Bush was vindicated.

Oh, they'll spin it anyway, mention how it had nothing to do with supporting Bush, etc. It was all domestic concerns, blah, blah.

They might even try to get away with saying how the Liberal party got defeated soundly in Australia...not mentioning that there, the Liberals are the conservatives. It's a good way to muddy up the issue.

al-Qaeda in Iraq, that is. But it seems to be as big of a threat to our safety as the idiots in Miami that thought Osama might buy them boots.

I watched Charlie Gasparino (the source of the CNBC story) try to correct the 45,000 number, he said no numbers were given by Citigroup. Gasparino has said for quite awhile that it could be up to 45,000 layoffs at Citigroup, but that's his prediction for the long term.

I can see how you might want to defend Klein's take on this, but even Klein admits it's too tough for him to know all the facts. That really is beyond the pale.

Can you at least admit then Klein either should have written about a topic he does fully grasp (back to the typical horse race stuff he likes) or a topic that he could research and then fully grasp?

It would be the same reason that I'm not willing to write an article about particle physics, especially one that calls one bunch of scientist idiots for not grasping something that may or may not be true....because it's over my head.

As an aside, I don't think this is over Klein's head, he was lazy and played, and now won't fess up.

Thanks Glenn, for digging in on this.

Over at Firedoglake this morning they were discussing this topic and one poster jayackroyd I though put it very nicely.

"What dooms Joe to continue making this kind of mistake is he starts from the premise that everything is partisan; he’s bought into the republican meme that there are no facts, only politics. So he thinks his job is to listen to the spin of operatives on both sides, weigh them carefully, and then decide which side’s spin is more accurate."

I only disagree that Joe carefully weighs the argument, he listens to the Repub's spin on the topic and weighs it against the Republican spin of the Dem's position.

Wow, I hope Glenn gets a better response from the Time editor Priscilla Painton than Jane got. Circling the wagons, indeed.

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/11/27/time-magazine-circles-the-wagons-around-joe-klein/#comments

Which is why the grandmother's complete love of her little dog should be taken into account. She's elderly, ill, etc., but she LOVES her little dog.

It would be down right cruel to take that away from her regardless of how you feel about animal rights.

If your grandmother gets put into a home or has passed away, then you can determine what you want to do with the dog. Not now.

"It's often the case advertisers will find it more profitable to reach a smaller, richer (and usually more conservative) audience than a larger, poorer one".

That's true sometimes, for example, CNBC with low ratings gets big bucks because of their demographics, which is why FOX is desperate to get in on that game.

But FOX is the exact opposite of what you are saying. It does not have the small, rich audience. It has a considerably larger audience than CNN, yet CNN has higher ad revenues. I can't see TIME (perceived as liberal by FOX viewers anyway) trying to reach out to them.