Joe Klein aka Anonymous
"It ain't me!!"
Time writer Joe Klein has come out with this posting on Fox News on Time's blog.
"Let me be precise here: Fox News peddles a fair amount of hateful crap. Some of it borders on sedition. Much of it is flat out untrue."
But I don't understand why the White House would give such poisonous helium balloons as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity the opportunity for still greater spasms of self-inflation by declaring war on Fox.
If the problem is that stories bloated far beyond their actual importance--ACORN's corruption, Van Jones's radical past--are in danger of leaching out of the Fox hothouse into the general media, then perhaps the Administration should be a bit more diligent about whom it hires and whom it funds.
If the problem is broader--that Fox News spreads seditious lies to its demographic sliver of an audience--the Administration should probably be stoic: the wingnuts will always be with us. The best antidote to their garbage is elegant, intelligent governance. The next-best antidote is occasional engagement: I thought Obama came away from his O'Reilly and Chris Wallace interviews much the better for it. (Though you don't want to sit down with a thug like Hannity or a weirdo like Beck.)
The problem with war is that it diverts attention from the actual news. The Administration has tried to pursue a sophisticated, difficult domestic and foreign policy. It doesn't offer the quick-fix irresponsibility of a tax cut or an invasion. It needs space, time and patience to explain. This is an enervating, midstream moment. It's not certain that the President's efforts from health care to Afghanistan will succeed. We'll know a lot more in a month, but I really hope the White House hasn't launched this attack to fill the public space while the other issues are being sorted out. The long-term costs of stooping to Fox's level are not just bad posture; they are a diminution of the office and its primary occupant."
Do you remember Joe Klein? If not, here is a reminder of who Joe Klein is from his Wikipedia entry:
"In January 1996, Klein anonymously published the novel Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics, based on the 1992 Democratic presidential primary. The book spent nine weeks as number one on the New York Times bestseller list, with its author listed as "Anonymous". Several people, including former Clinton speechwriter David Kusnet and, later, Vassar professor Donald Foster correctly identified Klein as the novel's author, based on a literary analysis of the book and Klein's previous writing. Klein lied, denying authoring the book and publicly condemning Foster.[2][3] Klein denied authorship again in Newsweek, speculating that another writer wrote it. Washington Post Style editor David von Drehle, in an interview, asked Klein if he was willing to stake his journalistic credibility on his denial, to which Klein agreed.[4] On July 17, 1996, Klein admitted that the speculation had been correct.[5]"
-Wikipedia
"Much of it is flat out untrue"
So much for the credibility of Joe Klein. He chose to write a political novel based on the 1992 presidential primary, but didn't have the courage to affix his name to it. Even when confronted with the identity of the author (himself), he denied and denied-then fessed up a'la his hero, Bill Clinton.
What kind of hypocritical worm is Joe Klein that he now attacks the credibility of anyone in the news business?
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