January 29, 2007 -- 3:13 PM EST // // Post a Comment
KLEIN, MAN OF SUBSTANCE, DEFENDS BRODER'S SUBSTANCE-FREE ATTACK ON HILLARY.
Over at Swampland, Joe Klein responds to Atrios and Matthew Yglesias by defending David Broder's silly column attacking Hillary Clinton for not asking questions at the Senate hearing on General Petraeus. Klein writes:
I'm so pleased to have received the coveted wanker of the day award from Atrios, whose civility knows no bounds. But slightly disappointed in the Matt Yglesias post that Atrios links to, since Yglesias does have a reputation for substance over slime...A Senate hearing is a place to ask questions, not make speeches. Since Senator Clinton has made herself one of the best-informed Democrats on military policy, especially counterinsurgency, I do believe her questions might have illuminated how difficult the belated use of these tactics will be. Finally, Matt avoids responding to the real point here--I'm really interested in the quality of questions Hillary, and all the other candidates, will ask as President. A Senate hearing is the perfect place to demonstrate she has perhaps the most essential skills a President can have--intellectual curiosity and the ability to ask the right questions.
Surely Klein has a far better grasp of what Yglesias actually wrote than he's letting on. The issue here is one of emphasis. At the hearing that Broder wrote about, lots and lots and lots of very important stuff was discussed. Different substantive points of view were offered about the single most important policy decision facing us right now. Clinton -- like many other Senators -- had lots of things to say about this very important decision.
Yet Broder -- who inhabits some of the most powerful opinion-making real estate on the planet right now -- devoted an entire column about this hearing to nothing but a minor question of theatrics. Even assuming that this criticism of Clinton's performance is valid, this failing on her part is dwarfed in importance, to put it mildly, by some of the other rather pressing and complex issues that were discussed.
What's more, Klein -- who likes to think of himself as a Man of Substance -- surely noticed that Broder didn't devote a single word of his column to analyzing what was actually being said about these issues by Hillary and others at the hearing. As I hope I showed below, it's pretty clear that Broder is far more in agreement with Hillary than he is with McCain. Surely Klein would have preferred to see Broder use all his expertise and industry to explain to his readers why he thinks Hillary is right or wrong on the substantive questions that were discussed. Instead, Broder used the occasion to get in a cheap hit and to push a facile comparison that was conjured up with the single goal of making McCain look good in comparison -- even though Broder, by all indications, disagrees with McCain on the key issue at hand.
Yes, a Senator's performance at a hearing such as this could conceivably contain a clue to what sort of President she would be, and perhaps deserves to be taken note of. But an entire column? And what about the dozens of other hearings Hillary has asked questions at? Come on, Broder's effort was just frivolous and petty nonsense -- it's not dissimilar to some of the other shallow obsessing over Hillary we're seeing even with nearly two years to go until Election Day 2008 -- and it's unsightly indeed to see a self-regarding Man of Substance like Klein defend it.
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