read the column/comments evryday - don't usuually post, no time, but just had to comment on this. Klein and Painton, etc work at the behest of their employer, that is all. if they had strong ethical boundaries and believed in "journalistic integrity" they would be working elsewhere, not raking in the bucks. This isn't about integrity, or even politics anymore, this is about earnings per share. Time aka TimeWarner aka AOL aka CNN aka WB aka multinational media conglomerate has a conflict of interst in the reporting of damn near every media issue presently reportable ...

As for the Dems, this might be shocking, but they are shareholders too.

let's give her a good sendoff, shall we? :)

Corrections proffered by major news organizations and daily papers are matters of negotiation, acknowledged always in a grudging manner. Must appear correct and omniscient at at times y'know.

Time's founder, Henry Luce, may have watched "Citizen Kane" a few times. Instead of feeling indignant at the character of Charles Foster Kane, as Hearst was said to have been, maybe Luce came away feeling he had some of Kane's swagger too. Thus the institutional persona of Time, now ossified in the 21st century.

There are the national security interests of the United States government, and then there are the interests of the American people regarding the national security policies of the government.

Right to know.

Maybe Joe Klein is just scribbling as a political reporter, doing his horse race thing. Maybe he's been a steno writer all along, part of the help at Time, harboring pretensions to be a Mencken or a Mailer. However, it could also be the case that Klein, and Time, are revealed in the Greenwald critiques as simply being inadequate to the task of reporting - rather than opining - on today's new national security and domestic eavesdropping issues.

Implicit in the reporting on excerpts from the McClellan book, are questions of what George Bush may have known about the outing of Valerie Plame and about how much the government intends to spy on us at home in a permanent way. We need to know how much "black ops" may be going on within the country right now. We need to know if the courts are being neutered, and how domestic spying may be occurring outside a court order. We certainly need to know if there's any effort now to push back, to have written legislation that protects our privacy rights in a 9/11 world. We need to know also the extent to which the Libby commutation allowed the president to cover up the way he has been using the CIA at home since that big day.

This could all be a "perfect storm" coming right at us, which knocks down pillars supporting the Constitution along the way.

If Joe Klein and Time magazine can't help us, where can we find out what we "need to know"?

to press so that all I can read are bebop-o's posts, for days when I need reminding of what is truly important. Hey bebop-o, sometimes when I read you I seem to catch a glimpse of why I am glad to be alive.

All You Need to (Not) Know About the Proposed FISA Fix

And that's why it is, indeed, almost impossible to have a serious, informed legislative and public debate about proposed FISA reforms ...

Don't tell Joe.

While I am hopeful that this is only one among many letters encouraging you to look into the false premises that underlie the latest offering from Joe Klein headlined “The Tone Deaf Democrats”, I nevertheless hope that you will take this issue seriously. After all, fitting facts around a pre-existing story-line has proven to be a fatal practice in the not-so-distant past.

In light of the fact that the details of the FISA bill are incorrectly described in the story, I find their use to support the following statements offensive to say the least:

The Democratic strategy on the FISA legislation in the House is equally foolish.

In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid.

As Dodd said, when the President takes the oath of office, he (or she) promises two things: to protect the Constitution and to protect the nation against enemies, foreign and domestic.

The fact that the President’s oath of office doesn’t include “protect the nation against enemies, foreign and domestic.” should have been the first hint that the article had some factual shortcomings.

While the particulars of the errors have been documented thoroughly by others, I wish to add my voice if only to stress that this is not a trivial matter. Stories are the currency of thought, and the act of furthering the story that Democrats are confused about National Security by spreading disinformation and confusion about their actual position does nothing but harm Time’s reputation as a source of news

Mr. Stengel,

I am writing to ask that a full accounting of the circumstances that led to Joe Klein's FISA article -- the sources involved, the vetting of the factual basis, the editorial approval -- be done and made public. Time magazine was among the chorus calling for such vetting when Mary Mapes and Dan Rather were in the crosshairs, they should hold themselves to no lower standard than that which they demanded of others.

In particular, if it is not already the policy, a writer like Mr. Klein should be required to actually read, track down cross references, and seek whatever advice is necessary to understand any bill he wants to make such pronouncements about, especially one that concerns some of the most cherished rights and freedoms of the American people. If he does not understand that these are cherished rights and freedoms, he should take whatever time off is necessary, at his own expense, to read both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and reflect that after habeas corpus, there was no more fundamental right to those who found it necessary to break with Britain than the right to security of our persons, houses, papers, and effects. Any opinions that Mr. Klein, his editor Priscilla Painton, you, or Time Magazine wishes to stand behind should be capable of withstanding a withering scrutiny when dealing with the rights of others, and not be just a glib recourse to dead-horse-race homilies about bipartisanship and soft on national security. Does your magazine not find these documents to meet your "high standards for intellectual rigor" for which Ms. Painton is known internally?

This nation will not long survive as a nation of free peoples if the Fourth Estate cannot be bothered with knowing the facts before committing pen to paper. If Mr. Klein and Ms. Painton cannot understand that getting it right is more important than getting it out, they should be asked to find another Act II in another industry. It may not surface frequently in your discussions and meetings as part of what Meryl Streep in Lions with Lambs called a "business unit", but the American People are charged with making decisions about the direction of this nation, and they granted the press its freedoms to insure that they had accurate information to make those decisions. And for no other reason.

Sincerely,