Success! Joe Klein Defines "Ideological Extremism."
(March 3, 2007 -- 9:37 AM EDT // link // )

Okay, so to his credit Joe Klein has issued an indirect response to the challenge that this blog threw down for him yesterday. Part of it, anyway. He's defined what he means by the term "left-wing extremist."

As you know, this challenge was prompted by the fact that Klein yesterday described Atrios as an "ideological extremist." This blog's goal was twofold: (a) to get Klein to explain why he thought this; and (b) to get him to explain what he meant by the term "ideological extremist." The larger goal was to get him to ditch his habit of attacking liberals -- and people whose opinions you'd expect to be generally in line with his own -- without detailing what specifically about their views he finds objectionable. After all, he is one of the nation's most visible pundits, and his opinions carry weight with mainstream audiences.

Now Klein has responded by offering what he calls a "partial list" of views one has to hold in order to earn the designation of "left-wing extremist." I think he was responding to my post, anyway; he didn't link to it, so perhaps he was merely responding to comments generated by it. At any rate...

A left-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:

--believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world.

--believes that American imperialism is the primary cause of Islamic radicalism.

--believes that the decision to go to war in Iraq was not an individual case of monumental stupidity, but a consequence of America’s fundamental imperialistic nature.

--tends to blame America for the failures of others—i.e. the failure of our NATO allies to fulfill their responsibilities in Afghanistan.

--doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history.

--believes American society is fundamentally unfair (as opposed to having unfair aspects that need improvement).

--believes that eternal problems like crime and poverty are the primarily the fault of society.

--believes that America isn’t really a democracy.

--believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.

--believes in a corporate conspiracy that controls the world.

--is intolerant of good ideas when they come from conservative sources.

--dismissively mocks people of faith, especially those who are opposed to abortion and gay marriage.

--regularly uses harsh, vulgar, intolerant language to attack moderates or conservatives.

I think this represents progress of sorts. Now Klein won't be calling anyone a left-wing "extremist" unless he can demonstrate unequivocally that they hold "many" of the above ideas, or "tendencies," as he puts it. Right?

Meanwhile, efforts to get Klein to explain why he thinks Atrios is "extreme" were less successful, unfortunately. He wrote:

Sean Hannity is a ideological extremist and a bully. Atrios may or may not be an ideological extremist--I was wrong to say he was, since I don't know enough about him--but he sure is a purveyor of extreme and terminally smug rhetoric.

This is a bit disappointing, because yesterday's post below helpfully provided Klein with a list of Atrios' positions on about two-dozen issues, so that he could get to know the actual views of his target.

Incidentally, Klein promises a definition of "right wing extremism" next week. Stay with us.

Joe Klein Valiantly Battles "Ideological Extremists"
(March 2, 2007 -- 1:46 PM EDT // link // )

I swear that I'm not doing this merely to defend Atrios -- but rather because I really want to see if it's possible to cut through the static afflicting Joe Klein and get him to stop attacking liberals and people he generally agrees with without explaining clearly what he's faulting them for and without providing evidence for his charges.

And also to prompt discussion of something else, but more on that in a sec.

In his latest post on Swampland, Klein out of nowhere insinuates very clearly that he thinks Atrios is an "ideological extremist":

I'm as proud of being named "Wanker of the Day" as I am of being Sean Hannity's "Enemy of the State for the week." After 38 years of doing this, I've found that most of the real wankers and enemies of the state--and intellectually insecure bullies--are ideological extremists.

And Klein clarifies:

I meant to say that the real wankers and enemies of the state tend to be ideological extremists--and intellectually insecure bullies--who need to hunt for "wankers" and "enemies."

But why does Klein think Atrios is an "ideological extremist"? What is his evidence for this? Is it merely the fact that he calls people "wankers"? There's nothing "ideological" or even "extreme" about employing this epithet. So again, what is it about Atrios' actual views that leads Klein to call him this?

The point is, calling someone an "ideological extremist" without explaining what makes them one is really no different than calling someone a "wanker." In a sense, it's actually worse, because when you call people on the left and right ideological extremists, what you really mean is that you are superior to them -- that they've failed to think their way out of a rigid set of imprisoning ideas, while you have the intellect and strength to avoid succumbing to this intellectual infirmity. It's intellectual triangulation designed to feed one's vanity. Whereas when you call someone a "wanker," you're showing no such pretension. What's more, when Atrios designates someone his "wanker of the day," he generally links to another post with a substantive argument against that person. By contrast, Klein didn't provide any substance here.

Here is a list of Atrios' positions on around two dozen issues. This is a sincere question: Which ones does Klein agree with, and which ones does he disagree with? And why is it that the points of disagreement -- presuming there are any -- make Atrios an ideological extremist?

Relatedly -- and this is the real point I wanted to get to -- how do we know an ideological extremist when we see one, anyway? How many issues does one need to disagree with Klein about before becoming an ideological extremist? What does the nature of that disagreement -- or the nature of the way one holds one's views -- need to be? How is the term "ideological extremist" as used here anything more than a meaningless slur, just like "wanker" or "jerk" or "shithead" or anything else? Can all of us -- including high-priced columnists turned bloggers -- please commit to backing up our charges with actual evidence?

Please enlighten us on these points, Mr. Klein. They are important questions for anyone who wants to keep the dialogue "civil."

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.

Howard Kurtz: Politico Piece Should Have Disclosed Gerstein's Lieberman Fees
(March 2, 2007 -- 11:51 AM EDT // link // )

This blog yelled and stamped its feet at length yesterday about Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, but he does deserve credit for this one.

Kurtz has now commented on the flap over The Politico piece by Joe Lieberman adviser Dan Gerstein attacking liberal bloggers. And Kurtz agrees with the point I and others have been making: The piece should have disclosed that Gerstein is currently taking money from Lieberman. Kurtz writes:

The point is that liberal bloggers have been kicking the stuffing out of Lieberman, and readers ought to know who you're working for if you're kicking back.

Yeah, seriously. That's right. Though Kurtz didn't directly name who was at fault here, his point still stands: That info should have been there.

Keep in mind that Kurtz is a former colleague of Politico big men and former Post journalists John Harris and Jim VandeHei. Maybe they'll get the message on this now that it's been voiced by a trusted professional peer, rather than by just another jerk in the blogosphere who's just trying to manufacture a fake controversy with yet another wild-eyed rant about the "MSM."

And with that, you've heard this blog's last word on this topic. Barring further developments, of course.

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.

Fussillade Of Stand-Alone Stories Slammed Obama For "Gaffe." So What About McCain?
(March 1, 2007 -- 5:22 PM EDT // link // )

Okay, so here's the question. The media pummeled Barack Obama for a "gaffe" and a "stumble" when he said American lives were "wasted" in Iraq. So how about McCain? How about it?

Yesterday, during his Presidential announcement on David Letterman, McCain described American lives lost in Iraq as "wasted." He has just issued a statement saying he screwed up and instead should have used the word "sacrificed." This is exactly the same mistake, of course, that Obama committed back in mid-February.

A number of bloggers today have pointed out that the conservative outrage machine has been silent about this -- even as it went into overdrive in response to Obama.

But here's another thing to look at. How many stand-alone stories by the big news orgs will we see about McCain's screw-up? How many times do you suppose mainstream media commentators will refer to McCain's fumble as a "mistake," a "gaffe," or any similar such term?

Thus far crack TPM reporter-researcher Eric Kleefeld and I have been able to find exactly zero such descriptions. We've found a grand total of two -- yes, only two thus far -- stand-alone stories about McCain's foul-up, and neither used any such language. One was by ABC News, the other by the Associated Press. USA Today, meanwhile, used the AP story but actually described the incident positively in a subhed, saying that McCain moved "swiftly to calm the waters."

By contrast, when Obama committed this error, he was greeted with a fusillade of stand-alone stories, many of them hammering him for his political screw-up. "His first stumble," said the Chicago Sun Times. "Stumbling out of the gate," said political wise man Ron Fournier in a piece carried by MSNBC. Matt Lauer of NBC wondered: "How big a fallout will there be over this?" There was plenty of other babbling about it on cable, too.

And on McCain? Nutin'. As of yet, anyway. Again, it's early days. Maybe we'll see a bunch of stand-alone stories on this tomorrow. Maybe we'll hear lots of similar denunciations of McCain's blunder in the next 12 to 24 hours. Or maybe not. Maybe instead we'll be reminded yet again of the media's default setting: On military matters, Dems are presumed to be politically vulnerable, while Republicans -- particularly McCain -- are presumed to be politically infallible.

Meanwhile, have a look at these and get pissed off...

*****************************************************************************************

*****************************************************************************************

*****************************************************************************************

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.

Howard Kurtz Publicizes Malkin's Efforts To Tar Left -- Even Though He Thinks They're "Absurd"
(March 1, 2007 -- 11:58 AM EDT // link // )

This is a good one. Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz today gives top billing to Michelle Malkin's highlighting of a few insane comments on Huffington Post about the Dick Cheney assassination attempt. At the top of his column, Kurtz writes:

The comments appeared on the Huffington Post, which, to its credit, took them down. But some were preserved by Michelle Malkin, and I reproduce them here...

Says Malkin: "Whatever your partisan leanings, an attack planned on the Vice President of the United States is an attack on America. Some of our fellow Americans, however, can't put their sneering hatred of the White House aside."

After giving Malkin's efforts all this publicity, however, Kurtz goes on to say way down in his column:

I would agree that it's absurd to view these assassination fantasies as anything other than the rantings of the fringe, and that they shouldn't be used to tar an entire ideology. All I'm saying is that it's really sad that some loons feel this way, and that the Internet culture, however briefly, gives them a megaphone.

But Howard -- using these comments to "tar an entire ideology" is exactly what Malkin is doing here, and you know it. But you publicized her efforts, anyway. In the Malkin post you link to, she approvingly quotes a description of these loony comments as "left-wing patriotism." And she also approvingly quotes this:

"This kind of sick, twisted thinking is everywhere in the “progressive” blogosphere...And it’s even sicker than it appears at first glance, because many of these freaks want to see Cheney dead so that he can’t become president if someone assassinates President Bush."

I'm not at all defending those HuffPo comments -- they're disgusting, of course. But still, Kurtz knows exactly what Malkin is up to here. She's doing the very thing he said was "absurd" -- but he went ahead and publicized her efforts, anyway, while ignoring their true nature.

Yes, Kurtz wrote that tarring an ideology with a few vile comments is an absurd tactic in general -- without noting that this is exactly what Malkin is doing. Why tiptoe around the truly vile nature of this woman? Is the prospect of being targeted by her readership of pod-people really all that frightening?

Relatedly, how about a serious takeout on all the vile, bigoted, bloodthirsty comments you see at winger sites like Little Green Footballs? The other day, hapless wingnut Charles Johnson put up a post at LGF which contained a photo of leaders from Iran and Syria under the title: "Definition of a Target-Rich Environment." Some of the comments: "Kill them. Now." "If only it were so." "Satan aka Allah is in that room." "I smell...felafel farts." None of those comments has been removed -- unlike the ones at Huffington Post, which were taken down.

Yes, yes, I know, it's not a perfect parallel, because those leaders constitute the "enemy" while Cheney is our Veep. But still, this sort of violence and bigotry is everywhere in wingnut comment sections -- and the comments are often directed at Americans. When is the last time Kurtz devoted the lead of his column to that?

**********************************************************************

Update: More from Glenn Greenwald: "Why would Kurtz so prominently tout and condemn the meaningless and unrepresentative remarks of 200 or so anonymous blog comments, while ignoring the equally perverse behavior and ideas of some of his best-est friends on television...?"

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.

Creative Editing By Maureen Dowd Transforms Gore Into Pompous Bore
(February 28, 2007 -- 3:04 PM EDT // link // )

Let's watch Maureen Dowd transform Gore into Bore -- in one quick and easy step that you can learn, too!

In her column today on Al Gore, Dowd writes:

The man who was prescient on climate change, the Internet, terrorism and Iraq admitted that maybe his problem had been that he was too far ahead of the curve. He realized at a conference that “there’re ideas that are mature, ideas that are maturing, ideas that are past their prime ... and a category called ‘predawn.’

“And all of a sudden it hit me,” he told John Heilemann of New York magazine last year. “Most of my political career was spent investing in predawn ideas! I thought, Oh, that’s where I went wrong.”

Yeah, so Gore thinks the reason he went wrong is he's "too far ahead of the curve." What a pompous, pretentious, self-absorbed bore, right?

But wait -- watch those hands...they move awful quick. Let's go back and take a look at the full and original New York magazine passage Dowd quoted from:

After dinner in Toronto, Gore and I walk across the street from the hotel to the cinema where An Inconvenient Truth has just finished screening. Gore is talking about his fascination with the future and what an oddball it has made him politically. “We had this meeting in London for Generation”—his investment fund—“and there was a presentation that looks at all the business ideas that can be invested in. There’re ideas that are mature, ideas that are maturing, ideas that are past their prime, venture-capital-stage ideas—and a category called ‘predawn.’ And all of a sudden it hit me: Most of my political career was spent investing in predawn ideas!” Gore laughs. “I thought, Oh, that’s where I went wrong!”

Yes, the man laughed -- he was joking! He was making fun of himself! But Dowd's quick hands excised that inconvenient fact with a bit of deft editing. (Also note that the "pre-dawn idea" concept was Gore's in Dowd's version but actually wasn't Gore's in the original.) Thus it is that an amusing moment of ironic self-deprecation was magically transformed by Dowd into Gore as Bore. Poof!

Relatedly, perhaps it should be taken as a sign of progress that Dowd described Gore as "prescient" on climate change and the Internet and said he has been "vindicated" in these areas. In the past, she's never hesitated to mock Gore's interest in these issues, whether she's lampooning Gore as "Ozone Man" or recycling the myth that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet." So maybe this is indeed progress.

Or here's another explanation: Maybe for the Dowds of the world, the notion that Gore should be seen as something more than a target of mockery has for too long been a "predawn idea."

*************************************************************

Update: A couple of commenters smacked me for making too big a deal out of this. Honestly, I wasn't trying to make too big a deal of it -- I was trying to have a bit of fun here, just like MoDo! Alas, not all of us were born with her deft touch. You do what you can.

But seriously, the comments got me thinking about something. Sometimes the most trivial of misrepresentations end up being the ones that, with the assiduous assistance of wingnuttia and the indifference our outright hostility of a craven mainstreammedia, end up most successfully taking on a life of their own and "defining" their victim. After all, look at the mindless media repetition that the "invented the internet" falsehood ended up enjoying -- and look at the reach and impact this media mindlessness ended up giving it. Before you know it, the "trivial" misrepresentations suddenly don't seem so trivial anymore. Just something to keep in mind.

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.

Gerstein: So What If I'm Getting Paid By Lieberman?
(February 28, 2007 -- 11:56 AM EDT // link // )

* Updated below: CJR Daily weighs in.

Dan Gerstein has responded to my post below. He says there's no problem at all with the fact that The Politico published a piece by him attacking some of Joe Lieberman's high-profile foes at the same time that he was collecting money from Lieberman:

[W]hether I am a paid, unpaid, or former advisor to Lieberman was not relevant to my column. I was not writing in any Lieberman capacity or on his behalf -- I was expressing my own opinions. And the content of the column was not about Lieberman -- it barely mentioned him -- but about the blindness and irresponsibility of many liberal bloggers. (I will leave it to readers to decide whether Sargent's process point undercut my arguments or unwittingly reinforced them.)

The question that I keep coming back too is what would have been gained by highlighting my current status as a paid adviser in this particular context. The reason for disclosing that kind of information is to avoid hiding conflicts of interest or presenting interested opinions as independent ones. As I noted above, that was not at issue here -- both the column itself and the tagline at the bottom made clear my Lieberman affiliation. So what would have been the point?

What would have been the point? Why, how's this for a point: Because disclosing that he is getting paid by Lieberman would have constituted telling the full truth. The description of Gerstein as a former communications director alone was a misleading one at best. It's unwittingly revealing indeed that the basic goal of being as truthful as possible simply doesn't appear to enter into the equation for Gerstein here.

Look, here's the issue in a nutshell. If you're going to publish a long piece attacking the credibility of some of Lieberman's higher-profile critics by name...

Liberal Bloggers Demonstrate Their Political Immaturity, Democrat Suggests

...then readers of that piece deserve to know that the piece's author is collecting fees from him. Is there any chance that Politico bigs John Harris and Jim VandeHei disagree with that? Doubtful.

Gerstein claims it's not "relevant" that he is an adviser to Lieberman. But come on, now -- Gerstein's piece wasn't merely intended as a scholarly discussion of the blogosphere. Whether The Politico's editors knew it or not -- and it's my bet that they didn't fully grasp this -- Gerstein's piece was also obviously about settling old scores, about payback for the fact that Lieberman repeatedly came under fire from the liberal blogosphere during the campaign. More to the point, Gerstein's piece also attacked the credibility of some of Lieberman's current critics -- something that helps advanced Lieberman's current interests.

While it's true that the initial description of Gerstein established a link between Lieberman and Gerstein, that simply wasn't enough by any standard. Would we all think it absolutely fine if a newspaper published, say, a piece that contained elements attacking some Hillary Clinton critics written by a current paid Hillary adviser -- internet guru Peter Daou, say -- while identifying him as a former adviser? Nope -- of course we wouldn't.

What happened here is this: Gerstein used The Politico as a platform partly to settle the old scores of -- and to advance the current agenda of -- a paying client, but without mentioning the "paying" part. Is that really what Harris and VandeHei envision for something they're hoping to establish as the preeminently credible Web-based political publication?

Update: Atrios boils down the whole issue very neatly here.

Update II: The above has been slightly edited to correct an inaccuracy by taking "former communications director" out of quotes.

Update III: Paul McLeary at CJR Daily:

We're not saying that Gerstein is hiding his affiliation with Lieberman -- he is quoted as working for him in the other Politico story, but from a journalistic standpoint, his continuing relationship with Lieberman, and all the history with liberal bloggers that that relationship entails, does in fact taint his piece.

While Gerstein claims innocence, it's important to remember that he's a political operative, and thus he works under a very different set of rules than a journalist. His goal is to push the interests of his clients, period. It's the editors of the Politico who should have known better.

Er, yes. For the record, I have no idea whether The Politico's editors knew this before the piece went up. I tend to doubt it -- I've gotta think that if they had known it, they would have put it in their description of him. But the bottom line is that it wasn't there, and it should have been.

Update IV: Crooks and Liars' John Amato turns up the volume.

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.

Did Politico Publish Dan Gerstein's Attack On Bloggers Without Identifying Him As Current -- And Even Paid -- Lieberman Adviser?
(February 27, 2007 -- 12:53 PM EDT // link // )

Yep, it appears that The Politico may indeed have done just that.

On Feb. 16, The Politico turned over its front page to a long hit piece on liberal bloggers by Liebermanite Dan Gerstein. In the piece -- titled "Liberal Bloggers Demonstrate Their Political Immaturity, Democrat Says" -- Gerstein repeatedly unloaded on bloggers, calling them everything from "spoiled children" to practitioners of "high-tech tantrum tactics." He even suggested that the Democratic Party should punish them by denying them access.

Needless to say, the bloggers or sites targeted by Gerstein -- MyDD, Kos, etc. -- were leading foes of Senator Joe Lieberman's reelection campaign last year.

Here's how The Politico identified Gerstein at the end of the piece:

As you can see, The Politico identified Gerstein here as a former communications director to Lieberman.

Now, let's take a look at another Politico piece on Lieberman: One that is up and running on its Web site right now. In the current article, here's how Gerstein is identified:

Got that? This current piece identifies Gerstein by saying that he "continues to serve as a paid adviser" to Lieberman. That would appear to be saying that Gerstein is currently collecting money to advise Lieberman.

If this is correct, here's what this means about the Feb. 16 piece: The Politico let Gerstein publish a long attack on some of Lieberman's most visible foes -- without mentioning that Gerstein is currently advising Lieberman and even appears to be getting paid by Lieberman or by his office or political committee.

That would be a journalistic no-no.

So what is Gerstein's status with Lieberman? I emailed both him and Lieberman's Senate press office this morning, asking for clarification of his role. No answer from either yet. I did a quick Nexis search, and while Gerstein is sometimes identified as a former adviser, a piece in The Hotline on January 14 -- over two months after election day -- identified Gerstein as "consultant/Lieberman aide Dan Gerstein."

So we have very good reason to suspect that Gerstein may well be a paid adviser to Lieberman. Incidentally, even if Gerstein is merely a current unpaid adviser to Lieberman, The Politico should have identified him as such when it published his attack on some of Lieberman's key political rivals. Hey, who knows, maybe there's an innocent explanation -- perhaps Gerstein wasn't a paid or unpaid adviser to Lieberman less than two weeks ago, but he is now. You never know. But for now, this looks like a bad one.

Update: Crooks and Liars takes a whack at this.

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.