Before you get up on your high horse, be sure you are not riding an ass.

Or morphing into one.

As for his description of Europe, project much Joe?

Oh, and I do care what the rest of the world thinks about the fact that our government tortures detainees.

The ACLU are commie pinko America-hating terrorist lovers. They will say anything just to be mean to America.

Joe Klein, et al, loves America. They only say good things about America and Americans.

Anyone who doesn't understand this is obviously a commie pinko America-hating terrorist lover, too.

Why can't you get this basic fact?

Klein is just unbelievable. Unbelievable. After the things he's done in the past few months, he has the sterno-blinded chutzpah to write "show me where I have erred"? Thanks for showing him a bit, GG, and I can't wait for the "I had neither the time nor the expertise to have determined whether that little insignificant piece was accurate."

That quoted piece, though, viewed through the lens of today's reality and having been educated by real investigations done since then by real interested persons instead of the propaganda of the time as reflected in the quoted piece itself, is fascinating. Did Klein's motivation consist of anything more substantive than that of a kid trying to call attention to himself in the hope of being invited to sit at the "adults' table" for Thanksgiving dinner? Is a banal desire to obtain approval from those in control really the explanation for this kind of claptrap journalism? I'd be interested in knowing who gave Klein an "audience" in the following week as a reward for writing this piece.

TIME's editors should be required to go back and read everything this guy has written in the past five years. Maybe then they would spare us further exposure.

I guess there's no way to say this without sounding like a suck-up, but here goes.

We are reading a serialized enterprise in muckraking in the classical sense of American journalism, the equivalent in many respects of Lincoln Steffens' "Shame of the Cities", I.F. Stone's pieces on McCarthyism and the Vietnam War, Ida Tarbell's "The History of the Standard Oil Company", or Jacob Riis's "How The Other Half Lives". This time, however, the subject of the relentless exposition of corruption and degradation isn't the neglect of our inner cities, or rapacious, unchecked capitalism, or the shame of a nation that would tolerate persistent poverty amid great wealth. This time the subject is journalism itself, or rather the corruption of the courtesans of power in this country masquerading as journalists.

Like the best muckrakers, Glenn is conducting a pitiless examination of an utterly corrupt and malignant institution, consumed by self-importance and dedicated primarily to preserving its prerogatives. At his best, Glenn reveals how the work of the Kleins and Kristols et al is not just a bastardized or debased form of journalism, but is actually antithetical to journalism, and in some senses simply a negation of journalism.

I haven't checked, but I assume readers of Glenn's blog are over at The Swampland this very moment tearing Joke Line a new one, letting him know that we know what a charlatan he is. With our help, maybe Glenn's work can force a re-examination of our corporate media that will actually result in change, and perhaps even a revolution in the corporate media. You never know. It wouldn't the first time a muckraker has forced the shame of an entire industry into the light of day and forced the nation to demand change.

Its over 6 years old. I'm not sure that

a)There were any of the major Guantanamo abuses underway at that point

or

b) Whether Joe was lied to by sources, or just pulled the column whole from thin air.

This might not be the best example of Klein getting taken in.

Reading the linked post by Joke Line, when I got to the"tell me how I've been misled" part, I began thinking, how would Glen respond? I didn't have long to wait for the answer. Great post as usual.

We have a Spandau. It's called Fox News, the Moonie Times and the Rush Limbaugh Comedy Hour. Does anyone with a functioning brain still take them seriously anymore? We need to make the public realize that these are not legitimate sources of news and opinion, media jokes that only sad and desperate has-beens and morons like Klein end up at as the final stage of their devolution from human being to blubbering pile of amorphous ooze.

Okay, then, I can go for a ride, this place is in the best of hands. Bye all, and thanks for putting up with me for a while. After all, the boon of kings... something, tumpity tum, lightly given, yeah... or something. Bye.

of that odious "journalistic" species of tough-talking and moralistic chickenhawk apologists for and suckups to people in positions of authority who will excuse any and all abuses of power because they need to believe in the myth of American exceptionalism, because their daddy said that we were a great and perfect country and their daddy couldn't be wrong, could he, or else their entire worldview collapses. An insecure and self-loathing nitwit posing as a thoughtful and wise reporter, with sage beard and all, who deep down stands for and believes in nothing but his own self-preservation, and wants nothing more than to be patted on the head by authority figures and told "Good boy, good boy, here's a cookie!". He absolutely OOZES idiotic insecurity on a level that makes Chris Matthews look brilliant and brave. A total poser and fake who fancies himself a thoughtful pundit and insightful sage, much as Bush fancies himself a tough cowboy rancher because he posed for a couple of photos on his fake dude ranch.

We have to not only ridicule these assholes. We have to destroy them as credible "journalists" and pundits. As much as we have to go after the bottom-feeding "media" organizations that pay them to spout their vile inanity, as well as threaten and displace them with more credible emerging alternative media outlets, we have to go after the people who actually do this. What was done to Rather, Donahue and Banfield MUST be done to creeps like Klein, Williams and Stephanopoulos. Let them go work for Fox or the Moonie Times or some other wingnut fake news propaganda outfit. But discredit them as legitimate journalists and pundits on what passes for today's mainstream media. If one's local supermarket carried brands like "Red Man" and "Sambo", we'd go after them and force them to take such products off their shelves. I see absolutely no difference when it comes to the media. We need to make it painful to be, and hire, jerks like Klein, who are the media equivalent of offensive and stupid products.

What an ass Klein is. Literally nothing that he says is true, or makes sense. One can almost smell the crap in his pants as he continues to perplexingly suck up to the far right and condone its every atrocity, like some beaten-down lapdog who fears another beating.