I consider this some great reporting.
Joe Klein slings these arrows at us as "a fellow liberal" (imo, to pander to both sides) and now he's not going to be able sling "it" quite so freely.
Thanks!

yep -- that was precisely the idea. thank you.

Just wondering, does Klein define Bush as an ideological extremist?

we'll find out next week...

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

I notice he didn't offer "believes the Bush Administration is a fundamentally negative force in the world."

Whew. I only meet some of the criteria, rather than many. I guess I'm not an extremist. I do think Klein is a fathead, but that appears to be an essential characteristic of punditry. Or at least the sort of punditry that is published these days in the mainstream. And on a fathead scale of 1-10, Klein has an awful lot of competition bending the curve. He's unlikely to make it up to double digits.

I wonder if Klein is being deliberately provocative to pump up readership for the web site & thus more viewing of the ads there. Counting the ad for Time Magazine, there are 3 ads.

Maybe, we'd be best served by just ignoring Klein. Other opinions?

Jan, I agree to a point, but the problem is that I note a lack of qualifiers in many of the items that Klein listed. He does this so he can place the extremist label on as many liberals as he can.

For example: I bet if you ask Atrios if he "believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world." Atrios would say no. But if you ask him if he "believes the United States' foreign policy under this administration is a fundamentally negative force in the world." he would say yes.

I bet if you ask left leaning types if they believed the items in the list are true, for the most part they would say no. But if you specifically apply it to the bush administration, many of their answers would switch to yes. That doesn't make them extremists, it only shows just how screwed up this administration has been in the past 6+ years.

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

Hm. He's got me there. I believe that democracy is the best liberal idea in human history. Does that make me an extremist?

I consider my self a left wing exstremist. I don't need to use vulgar terms to describe the opposition. I like to quote their own words. I know that's kind of a Pandora's box, but they're not my word's. When your Govt. lies repetedly even after they've been corrected, and proven to be lying, what would you call them?
I don't mock anyone's faith, to each his own.
I also don't believe anyone even "THE DECIEDER" is capable of making personal decisions for everyone.
All I can say to the GOP is good luck in "08", you're going to need it. 70% of America has seen through your SCAM. Just keep on obstructing in the Senate, and we'll replace another 8 or 10 of you in 08.

We can start the list:
You might be a right wing extremist if you believe:
bush earned anything in his whole life, other than the title: Worst President Ever.

Great work. Thanks for doing this. I really look forward to your continuing exchanges with Klein on this subject.

Okay, these are Joe's thoughts, and he's entitled to them. But if this:

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

is an "extremist" position, then what adjective do you hold out for the folks mixing up bombs in the basement? I don't want to turn this into an exercise in taxonomy, but aren't there several degrees of difference, say, between Hilary and Atrios, and Atrios and Earth Firsters? This is a start, as you say, and maybe it'll cause Klein to smith his words a little more carefully in the future. But in the end, it's all about how capitalism has made us prostitute our language in order to pimp our "ideas." Klein is promiscuous with the word extremist for the same "reason" Coulter is loose with the word faggot. Ultimately (and I know this sounds extremist) it's all about ringing up the cash register.

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

This one made me laugh. Fully ninety-nine percent of this sort of language that I see comes from the right wing. I've never heard of a liberal implying that the speaker of the house should be assassinated, even when that speaker was Newt Gingrich.
Just compare any 'liberal' blogger to what comes from Malkin, Coulter, etc.

Actually this "list" just confirms the suspicion that Klein lives in this beltway bubble, responding not to facts, but to the voices in his head.

I can't think of ANY liberal, certainly not any "maintream" liberal blog, that promotes any of those ideas--not even one.

The only time I see those ideas expressed is in anonymous comments on blog posts, along with the 9/11 conspiracy theorists and "jews are controlling the world" adherents.

And Klein doesn't even realize what he is revealing about himself.

In other words - anyone who doesn't agree with him. How novel.

Azdak, you should get out more.

[whoa, cool! my 'security code' word is BLOOD]

So, just what does Klein mean by "...exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes..."? Does he mean one? Does he mean two or more? Is it just intended to offer weasel words so he can slip away from a definition when it strikes his fancy? His laundry list is so long that he might as well have included the idea that left-wing extremists believe the Earth orbits the Sun rather than being the center of the universe.

Now if only Greg could get Klien to name a few liberals who meet his criteria. Now that would be interesting

As the other commenters on "the United States [as] a fundamentally negative force in the world" imply w/o quite stating, the key word here is "fundamentally." Across nominal political divides, there's a divide of the empiricists and the ... let's say faithful. For us empiricists, the ways to judge America's effects on the world is ... to look at the world. For others, one starts with a principle that America is a force for good and then tries to explain events in light of that faith. When empiricists start with facts and then formulate a judgement, they are demonstrating their faithlessness -- specifically, their lack of patriotism (or sometimes actual treason). It's the same phenomenon as a religious believer who feels that atheism is reducible to amorality or immorality.

As Josh Marshall and others have noted, this "faith-based" approach to the world is the defining characteristic of the Bush administration.

At least we need have no worries that Klein "doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history," what with his stay tuned till next week tease about right wing extremism.

"Useful" works well to describe Klein's list.

As I read the mainstream/corporate press these days, I'm reminded of my own considerations of Soviet Russia. When I was a child during the 50s and 60s, I wondered how Russian schoolchildren fared when Pravda was their only source of news. (Yes, I considered the Reader's Digest and the Weekly Reader, etc., fair and balanced at the time.)

I decided that ordinary Russians -- the smart ones anyway -- should or would develop reading techniques to see through the bullshit in the same way we (American schoolkids) could read through advertising slogans and television commercials.

In that spirit, I'd like to offer one observation of Klein's definitions.

Kleins use of modifiers ("fundamental", "primary" "monumental" "tends to" "carefully", regularly, etc.) function as equivocators. That is, while the expressed thought says one thing, the equivocating language makes counter argument virtually impossible.

For instance, I don't think America is fundamentally evil. However, I think the criminality and immorality behind and during the invasion of Iraq can be described as "evil". It's as good a word as I can find to describe stuff like shock and awe, abu ghraib, and the wanton slaughter of "collateral" people.

If I work for the mainstream/corporate press, I cannot say such things. I wouldn't keep my job. Or, if I did say such things in print, I'd be -- voila! -- an "ideological extremist." The equivocator words do not function to clarify, rather they function to prevent discussion of the topic. Klein et al can scuttle away from their own positions, sideways like crabs. Equivocating words allow facts and ideology to be at variance. (Or, perhaps, allow ideology to remain unperturbed by facts in the mind of the ideologue.)

Few of us want to engage in a discussion with someone who pre-emptively, irrationally believes -- doctrinally -- that America is fundamentally evil. Yet even before expressing an opinion based on commonly accepted facts, I'm already framed as an "ideological extremist" if my views don't -- pre-emptively -- repudiate that designation. Thus, for instance, we hear the banal refrain from every politician in America: "I support the troops ..." as a means of avoiding a designation as a fringe leftist.

Equivocating modifiers allow the user to avoid responsibility for polarizing language while using polarizing language.

That such people as Klein recieve and keep their jobs speaks more about the integrity of the "free press" than about the politics of people like myself -- or any other ordinary American trying to make sense of these maglignancies.

Klein's response shows a lot more thoughtfulness than have many of his previous columns and posts. I will give him that. But I don't think he has thought through what his aspects of extremism add up to.

It's a clever piece of rhetoric, for example, to point to the idea that "the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world" as unacceptably extreme. Alluding to this hyperbolic universal allows him and his ilk to paint any and all criticism of particular US actions and tendencies as having negative consequences in the world with the "extremist" brush.

If such extreme ideas are unacceptable in public discourse, we're left with a situation in which one whole side of the argument, that any given US action could, in fact, be evil or massively deleterious. Proponents of, say, invading Iraq are allowed to say it would be all to the good, seeds of democracy, removing of tyranny, being greeted with flowers, etc. But saying that blowing the hell out of the country and severely destabilizing the place could result in a lot of people (gasp!) hating us is out of bounds.

It's just another version of dogmatic American exceptionalism, and the latest in the long, dishonorable line of claims that those who criticize our government's actions hate America.

The coarseness of Klein's categories is a recipe for slippery-slope accusations. Examples:

"--believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world." Note the eternal present-tense of the verb "to be," which blurs the distinction between thinking GW Bush's foreign policy a negative force in the world and thinking America *as such* is.

Ditto for the next three items. (And Joe: is the right-wing version--that America "is," always and everywhere, a force for good--any less worthy of criticism?)

"--tends to blame America for the failures of others—i.e. the failure of our NATO allies to fulfill their responsibilities in Afghanistan." Allows any criticism of a particular policy failure to be denounced broadside as "blame America first." Americans who believe dissent and criticism are patriotic duties of course *must* criticize their own country first: it's the only one of which they are citizens, in which their opinions (supposedly) matter, and in which they are obliged to speak out. As a matter of patriotic passion, our own country is the one we are most emotionally invested in. Which shdn't mean, and in practice hasn't meant, that the US is the *only* government we criticize. (And: of course this can be overdone on both sides. I trust Klein agrees that D'Nesh D'Souza's version of "blame America first," or the Falwell/Robertson line that America deserved 9/11, are examples of what he condemns here.)

"--doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history." Leave aside that capitalism is a social structure/practice, a historical fact and force, rather than an "idea." It's certainly the most revolutionary force in history--for both good and ill. That is why we must be constantly vigilant to try to extend its good effects and mitigate the bad ones. But "class struggle" is part of the package of capitalism (its nicer name is "free economic competition") and the power of criticism is among the instruments of the struggle (or competition). Criticism of capitalism, arguments abt economic injustice, are a "natural" and necessary and constitutive feature of capitalism itself. They are inevitably passionate and often violent. And they will persist as long as capitalism persists. Hence Klein's own (welcome) qualifier: "capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed." But get used to the fact that the qualifier is an invitation to argument, debate and conflict, not a guarantor of consensus.

Ditto for the next six items. That is, the state of our democracy, the social and economic power of corporations, the "root causes" of crime etc, are all inevitable and chronic conflict-points in our national conversation abt "achieving our country." And more than our country: the conflicts will get more intense as the conversation becomes "globalized."

As to Klein's last two points: I, too, wd prefer less potty-mouth, less ad hominem, less self-righeous "dismissiveness"--less toxicity--from all stripes of the blogosphere. I can't say I find, as Klein sometimes seems to, that these symptoms are more salient on the left than on the right. But maybe I only think that because, apart from the potty-mouth, virtually all of it one sees on the MSM (the allegedly "liberal media") comes from the right. (On the MSM, there's no left equivalent of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc--and thank God. Or: do you disagree, Joe?)

But the sins of extreme, shrill, moralistic/self-righteous, poisonous (etc) rhetoric aren't limited to the right wing alone. The "slippery slope" problem seems to be built into the very structure of conflict, including rhetorical conflict. Escalation happens. Get used to it.

actually, david, i don't think this list is "thoughtful" at all; it's a laundry list of the standard tropes (i could have written it for klein!).

taken literally, it's reasonably accurate, although imbued with some truly stupid elements (the misunderstanding of capitalism, for instance: what klein wants to admire are functioning markets, not capitalism per se), and suggests that maybe 2% of americans are left-wing extremists.

Which gets us to the real point here: klein is spending all this time on denouncing 2% of americans instead of grappling with the fact that lots of people quite simply don't agree with klein's position on this or that issue on the merits and dealing with those actual merits.

it is, of course, much easier to say "you're a left-wing extremist" than it is to say, for example, "yes, i did, in fact, fail to use my soapbox to say anything in opposition to the war in iraq when it might have made a difference."

There are some superb comments to that Swampland post, but the best is this one I have archived for future reference.

Joe Klein's Punditry Principles, as deduced by Jeffrey Kramer, Mar 2, 2007:

By giving us his list of the hallmarks of left-wing extremism, Joe has also implicitly given us the creed of serious, sensible, decent liberals like himself. Such good folk believe:

That any war started by the U.S. should enjoy the presumption of benevolence until proven malignant, especially by the people whose countries we are bombing or invading.

That to consider whether U.S. actions in the Middle East had some impact
on the rise of Islamic radicalism is thoughtcrime, because it excuses the
terrorists.

That to talk of neocons’ pre-9/11 calls for war against Iraq as part of a
strategy to preserve and extend American world power, and to note how many
of those neocons ended up influencing Bush foreign policy, is to engage in
wild conspiracy theories.

That it is always the obligation of all good nations to come to the aid of
the poor United States in its wars, since (due to circumstances we need
not inquire into too fanatically) we somehow found ourselves lacking the
resources to do the job ourselves.

That Pinochet deserves the thanks of all decent liberals, for even if he
skimped somewhat on secondary liberal principles like freedom of speech,
due process, etc., he still held tenaciously to the best idea in liberal
history: capitalism.

That “fair” is an unspeakable word in polite economic discourse.

That American levels of poverty and crime are the result of fundamental
laws of physics, and that the apparent suspension of such laws in many
Western European countries is a trivial anomaly which doesn’t deserve any
serious consideration.

That the power of wealth to bend democratic institutions to its interests
is an unspeakable topic in polite political discourse.

That corporations would not pursue their own interests at the expense of
the public, would not fix prices, illegally pollute, cheat their workers
of pensions and benefits, etc., because... because... everybody knows you
just can’t get away with that sort of thing in AMERICA!

That to consider the role of (e.g.) energy companies in supporting
Republicans in general and George W. Bush in particular is to engage in
wild conspiracy theories.

That every decent liberal should get a tear in his eye and a song in his
heart when he hears the phrase “people of faith”, and that all who anoint
themselves with that phrase deserve nothing but respectful treatment even
when they expose secular plots to turn our children gay with soy milk.

That somewhere under William Kristol’s pile of bullshit there must be a pony.

That I have given my left-wing fanaticism away by using the ugly word
“bullshit” in connection with a respected member of the pundit class,
whose decades-long record of cynical lying and war-mongering delusions is
not nearly as transgressive of the standards of serious, decent liberals.

(I suppose it's too much to hope for to hear Joe or his defenders rise up
in indignation to proclaim "Caricature! Simplification! Strawman! Don't
put words in my mouth!")

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

The United States is a Republic, dumbass.

Oops... there's two.

One thing that really strikes me about the list is the utter..."unseriousness" of it. Joe Klein, for all his faults, is one of the foremost political commenters in the country. Does he honestly think that this laundry list constitutes an ideology? It is a complete joke.

Look, I don't expect Joe Klein, or any other pundit, to agree with me. What I do expect is for pundits to be able to describe, in an intelligent and accurate fashion, the political forces that exist today. What really ticks me off about David Broder, nowadays, is that he is just so WRONG in his political analysis. I really don't care about his personal beliefs.

Klein's list is embarassing. It's a collection of cliches, over-generalizations, whining about bad-manners (swearing and insulting people is now an ideology?).

It's hard to deconstruct the list because it is so stupid (e.g. since when are imperialistic ambitions and monumental stupidity mutually exclusive?) But what really struck me is that Klein, for the most part, appears to largely disagree with FACTS rather than normative values. For instance, whether a corporate conspiracy controls the world is really a question of fact, Klein isn't aguing in favor of corporate conspiracies.

Those characteristics have nothing to do with the real Left, they are contrivances of the Right and Mr. Klein should know that. Virtually every bullet on that list is assigned to a GOP fabrication about the Political Left and I doubt Klein could find one person that ascribes to such characteristics that is a part of the functional Left.. Those are Anarchist Mr. Klein.

I don't know anyone who thinks capitalism is the best liberal idea in human history, even with the qualifiers Klein cites. Klein really believes this?

And Klein believes that the debacle in Afghanistan is the fault of NATO?

And, if the "eternal problems" are not primarily attributable to society, what then? Are they primarily attributable to race? religion? Or do they just happen with a certain percentage of people? If so, why isn't the percentage evenly distributed across all echelons of society?

Like Joe Lieberman, he cites straight from the Coulter rulebook. Jokeline seeks to obscure the difference between criticism of the United States and criticism of Republican corruption, warmongering, and mendacity. Likewise, he STILL fails to cite any examples for his strawman attacks.

Good idea, now you need to do the same thing for Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Giuliani, Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, and Savage.

I particularly appreciate wltwellow's comments; they remind me of how we haven't progressed all that far from the tortured discourse of the early cold war days.

The thing that most strikes me about Klein's list is that it is built upon black/white, good/evil dichotomies. There's no allowance for nuance. You are either one of us, or one of them. Klein's litmus test functions primarily as a loyalty oath of sorts.

I would argue that such a litmus test represents "retarded" thinking. It conflates a vast universe of policy choices into a simple yes/no decision.

So Mr. Klein: Does that make me a left-wing extremist?

It would seem that one becomes an ideological extremist by disagreeing with Joe Klein, and in particular, the many, many terrible columns he's written over the years, and saying so. The mighty Joe himself, by the way, is always willing to use "intolerant" language to describe people who disagree with him (this whole affair is an example of it), but then, he's Joe Klein.

Great job, Greg. Drawing people like Klein gently into a discourse about what we all believe and how we express ourselves is exactly what the doctor ordered. A healing process of communication.

Keep it up.

I have to agree with wltmellow - Klein's list is a red herring because of the qualifiers. It's not a real list. It's a list of right wing attack memes that he's added his qualifiers to so that he's a reasonably centrist. But it's still a list of false memes used to hide real issues:

To wit:

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

The whole sentence hinges on fundamentally - when someone discusses the negative repercussons of American's foreign policy, they're charged with believing in their heart of hearts that America is bad and are often forces to say other positive things about our country

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

Again, this hinges on the word primary - and its the same disingenous argument as above. Anyone who is rational would see that American's foreign policy impulses in the Middle East are a contributing factor to Islamic radicalism. Anyone who has paid any attention at all to what's happened since our little adventure in Iraq would realize that its a factor. But this is a false argument used against those who try to mention this fact.

3) --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.

Again, the sentence hinges on fundamental (as well as multiple aspects) - few if any would argue specifically that it was America's fundamental imperialistic nature (or much less that America has one). But clearly some of the foreign policy impulses or our elites to be the preeminent player on the world stage - take, for example, the prefectly titled in this case, Project for a New American Century - played an incredibly important role is this debacle. And to suggest that Iraq was an _individual_ case of monumental stupidity when you've got the North Korea debacle right along side it and the clearly coming catastroph**k with Iran. And well, as the President said "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again (oh how I wish that were true)

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

This is so much bull. Afghanistan is not falling apart solely because of failures of our NATO allies. It's falling apart at least in part because we half-a**ed the job so we could take a shot at Iraq.

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

So much wrong with this. Capitalism carefully regulated and progressively taxed isn't really quite capitalism in the same way and its certainly not the type of capitalism that most people are specifically criticizing. Moreover, capitalism resists both regulation and progressive taxation. And there are lots of really important liberal ideas and to say that capitalism is the best, well, even if I agree that its important I can see lots of other people with perfectly reasonable counterarguments.

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

Again with the fundamentally. And that may be simply argued to be true in this case, though again I don't really agree. 1)There are as Klein stipulates unfair aspects of our society that need improvement, some of them desperately. 2) Major and powerful interests in society actively resist these areas of improvement and, in some areas, are powerfully rolling back previous areas of improvement. To wit, there is clear unfairness. The powerful are actively and successfully working to make it less fair by rolling back protections for the less powerful. The reader can be the judge about whether that meets his criteria for belief in fundamental unfairness but the implication of these arguments is that there is no factual basis for the argument (otherwise it really couldn't be ideologically extreme in the way that he suggests)

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

Again, this hinges on primarily. At the very least, poverty is clearly understood as something that society can do something about, should it desire to. In fact, major American centrist movements took as a given that poverty is something that is not the fault of the individual and that we could do something about it.

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

Another paper tiger used to tar people who point out the threats to our democracy.

8) --believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.

Again with fundamentally. This is used to tar people that criticize the highly amoral (not not immoral) behavior of corporations.

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

Now he's not even trying. Where are these people? I spend a fair amount of time in the center-left blogoshere and while there are some commenters that may say things like that, I've never seen anything remotely resembling this by any one of any note whatsoever. Though, I would add, this again is another trick frequently used to turn arguments against the powers that corporations can wield (e.g., they wrote a lot of legislation that regulated their own industry in the last congress or e.g., the depths of their pockets that allow them to forestall people with legitimate beefs against them) into easily dismissed caricatures of the real argument.

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

Again, intolerant is the key word. I think a lot of people have become very suspicious of good ideas from conservative sources because many of them come as trojan horses bearing things that are the very opposite of what we believe to be good ideas.

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

This is close as I get to agreeing. The problem being is that people of faith have placed our views in the political sphere and used our faith as an unimpeachable justification for those positions (just to be clear, I'm both pro-choice and pro-any marriage between two consenting adults). This really is not a tenable moral position in democratic society where people's faiths differ.

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

So revealing. He needs to get a thicker skin.

Finally, here's one list I bet we won't see from Klein. The list of what deteremines if you have a fetish for what you're told is the center (or what you decide is the center) and refuse to look at factual information.

Damn, I have such a hard time caring about what Joe Klein thinks about anything.

Greg, good work. This is very interesting, and I am looking forward to the list for the right-wing. It should be truly instructional to compare the two.

What strikes me most as I read this is very similar to wltmellow's reaction. This is a list that seems crafted to preclude intelligent discussion, not to kick off a good debate. And I think that reflects a lot that is wrong with our current national dialogue (shouting match).

I don't know whether it is the modifiers as wltmellow suggests, but as I read the list to see if I was a "leftist extremist" I kept saying, yes, but... is the US a force for evil? are crime and poverty the fault of society? a corporate conspiracy controlling the world? These are not yes or no questions, for anyone who is even half engaging their brain. Some will come out closer to no, and some closer to yes, and people who have a knee-jerk absolute yes, maybe they are extremists. But as someone else pointed out, there are facts to be brought to bear on most of these questions, and lots of room for discussion.

It's good to get Klein to specify this far. Now can you get him to admit that these are not yes or no questions, that they are questions worthy of discussion?

Otherwise we are still at the non-dialogue point of branding people extremists if they even raise these subjects for questions.

(Bill Maher was fired for saying that the 9/11 terrorists were not cowards- an obviously true statement that could not be made because it suggested that there was something about the terrorists that we should pay attention to-- they cared enough about something to be courageous. Maher was not saying that the terrorists were right, or that it was America's fault. But his statement was a tiny toe across the line questioning whether America is always so absolutely right that only worthless, cowardly, nonsensical evil can be on the other side.)

As I said, I'll be interested to see what Klein comes up with for right-wing extremism.

Woohoo! I'm not an extremist!

Mr. Klein's list - as he knows - would qualify virtually no one as a LWE. Presumably, he will do the same for Right Wing Extremists tomorrow.

Mr. Klein's individual items are so inadqeuately constructed as to contradict his definition. How often or consistently is capitalism "carefully regulated or progressively taxed"? This administration dismisses the utility of doing either. Yet, Mr. Klein would call many who oppose its economic priorities LWE. If his list of characteristics of a Right Wing Extremist are as impossible to establish, will he conclude there are none?

As do Mr. Bush's handlers, Mr. Klein has simply clouded the issue, and left himself room to continue doing what he always intended, while always denying it. Classy.

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

I dismiss people of faith who are opposed to abortion and gay marriage because their actions do not match their professed "faith." I don't believe I mock them; but, I don't take them seriously. I do try to point out their hypocrisies, such as saying they are pro-life when they have no qualms about bombing the daylights out of a country with people--probably even pregnant women--who have done no harm to this country. You cannot be pro-war and pro-life at the same time and expect me to take you seriously. Actions speak louder than words; and, most of those people who claim to be "people of faith" usually act in ways that show they are not truly people of faith.

I also do not dismiss or mock Jesse Jackson, a Baptist minister. Nor did I dismiss or mock Martin Luther King, Jr., also a minister. I do not dismiss or mock Andrew Greeley, a Catholic Priest, who writes great mysteries. I do not dismiss or mock Jimmy Carter who is truly a man of faith whose actions all coincide with his statements. Also, Carter doesn't shout at me about being a Christian; he just leads a quiet Christain life.

The only thing I will say about people against gay marriage often are quite hysterical about it; like it is equivalent to having a nuclear bomb dropped on this country. I don't believe it will have any impact on the institution of marriage as practiced by heterosexuals. I wish I had a dollar for every married heterosexual man who tried to get me in bed from the time I got boobs to today. I wouldn't need to work. It seems to me this causes more turmoil in the idea of marriage between a man and woman than gay marriage.

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

Does he include "cultural" imperialism? If so, well...Mr. D'Souza, call your office.

Along these lines, I would love to see TPM take on one of these right wing gas bags on the subject of whether or not the White House lied us into this war.

I want to encourage Josh to issue a very public challenge to Limbaugh, Hannity, Prager or Medved to a public on-line debate.

They've gotten away with avoiding this subject for far too long.

They'll never agree to do it but so what. It will embarrass them in front of their audiences thereby losing them significant credibility.

I've e-mailed Josh about this before, but haven't gotten a response.

I would encourage anyone who would like to see such a debate happen to e-mail Josh and make this happen.

Phylo out.

Hmmm

-believes that America isn’t really a democracy.

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

Of course, I don't consider heritics to be people of Faith. But this is a religious judgement on my part rather than a political one.

I think this represents progress of sorts.

Yes: we now know that Klein engages in the worst sort of strawman argument.

No progress on whether he considers his TIME bedfellows Krauthammer and Kristol to be ideological extremists, though.

I'm disappointed that Klein declined to name names. He did such a good job of outlining what he considers to be the extremist position that I'm left wondering, does he actually know anyone who holds it? Particularly any one with a significant position in our national political debate? Or blog readership measured in the thousands? Any one of the elected Democrats who is regularly described as being a liberal extremist by Republicans?

That's even giving him the benefit of the doubt on the criteria that are obviously framed as set-ups, and the ones where, as others have noted, disagreement is hardly extreme.

Of course, I myself do think democracy is the best liberal idea in human history, with its related concept that slavery is abhorrent ranking up there also, and capitalism, no matter how well regulated hardly in the running, so what do I know? Worse, I understand the word 'republic' to be the best description of our American system. But at least when I mock people of faith, I do it as a means of engaging them, and not 'dismissively'.

As far as the "US is a fundamentally negative force in the world" comment/rule goes, it's coincidental that this came up on NPR just this morning in an unexpected place: L.A.'s campaign to host the 2016 Olympic Games. One of the criteria cited as being problematic for both L.A. and Chicago (who are both competing to be the USOC's nomination) is the negative opinion held of the US worldwide.

Now, I'm sure if you pressed Joe "Joke Line" Klein - which we can't, which is why it takes him ages to acknowledge any criticism from his silicon tower - he would surely not assert that the rest of the world are ideological extremists, and this is part of what makes his list so egotistical. Funny that when ensconced in the American media, however, that acknowledging the attitude of the rest of the world qualifies as extremism.

Regarding Kleins definitions I find it reasonable and scientific to inquire if anything that the American culture, economics, corporate system of capitalism, or economic and military imperialism does is never wrong or above critisism or does not cause countering effect?

The real question of dissent is to review conventional wisdom and ask is this right? It is the same hubris that held the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages, or the Deep South in the 19th century.

We define what is reality and what is right by what is advantageous to us oh ididn't GM say the same thing in '69?

Lot of good comments here, but I'll throw down my .02 just as well;

Greg Seargent says Klein's definitions be good progress, and I'm inclined to agree - even though I at first thought his definitions were conservative axioms, using words like "capitalism" and "liberal" as if everyone had the same definition of those words.

But many people have pointed out his reliance on self-granted terms, and I wanted to mention that while this is a good start intellectually because we're getting pundits to string out their thoughts which can only bode well for public discourse, we’re still only fighting half the battle here.

Words have more than an intellectual impact, and I can't help but feel we're not appreciating the visceral effect of war. Those of us who aren't critically engaged all the time will still walk away with a different impression of political rhetoric here.

For instance, Klein is using the term "extremist" in a subversive way. He’s applying the connotations to thoughtful discourse. We all know "extremist" means double-plus ungood; "extremist" means furthest removed – that “extremist” has something extremely negative to it. Yet here he's applying "extremist" to people who might have good reason to doubt the liberal effects of capitalism, or be skeptical of imperialism in general. People who rationally counter capitalism's demerits with socialism’s merits are reasonable people who hold different perspectives of what socio-economic systems are humane. But Joe labels those people extremists, as if there's something wrong with their perspective, even though socialists may indeed hold views far outside the American norm.

Based on his critrea none of us are "left-wing exrtremists".

Uh sorry but I don't think it is extremist to wish that the extremist fascist terrorist's in the US Government and its State Controlled Media are someday brought to justice for their horse S!

Nice deconstruction, stlinquirer! What struck me is that the same points, with fewer qualifiers, a little more aggressively framed, a little more humor and it could have come from Karl Rove. This is comic book reasoning. Try take it seriously, Lenin, Che Guevara, even Osama bin Laden come out borderline.

One thing that really stands out about the list is that failures and problems at all levels are always individual, while successes are always system based. Talk about a closed mind.

The basic problem here is that Klein is an asshole. Plain and simple. You just can't get around it. Also, he's no liberal. He's a rich guy who is perfectly satisfied with what this society offers him, his family, and his rich friends. Like many other people, Klein has gotten old and fat and now instead of looking critically at society or politics he looks for justification of his own position. I would venture to say that there was never a time in this guys life when he wondered where his next meal was going to come from. He, like his brothers and sisters in the millionaire "journalists" club, is utterly disconnected with normal people or even common sense. Frankly, I had to laugh at the absurdity of his one statement that one is a left wing extremist if one:

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

That kills me! It really does!

I for one believe that the best idea in human history is that "we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights..."

So if that makes me a left wing extremist I'm happy to be in the company of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Washington, Franklin, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and many other well know left wing extremists.

There's almost nothing on Klein's list that I read that anyone I have ever met or heard about believesz. This is the classic creation of s straw man to knock down by a pundit who cannot back up the garbage he writes and who is a complete fraud not to mention an asskisser of the powerful and wealthy.

Fuck Joe Klein and all those that are like him! It's time for a new day and time to utterly destroy the platform from which he and his millionaire buds continue to misinform and mislead our people.

Atrios, TPM and other liberal sites on the net are precisely the means by which Klein and his ilk are sliding slowly toward becoming irrelevant and that's why he is always looking to attack the left. He finds himself in a defensive position, for the first time someone questioning what he writes and exposing his fabrications and distortions. Again, fuck Klein and his ilk. They are dinosaurs. Good riddance!

Ya know... Lib bloggers could stand a little roughing up on usenet. For the past decade, political discussions on usenet tend to end up being discussions of terms. That is, if they're not just shouting matches.

So some right-winger says that you're a 'socialist' because you voted for Kerry. Then the response is: 'Do you even know what a 'socialist' actually is?' And then it's all downhill.

Klein said something stupid, and everybody knows that 'ideological extremism' really means 'stuff Klein doesn't like.' Atrios is not an extremist, and not even an ideologue. That Klein made the accusation says more about him than anyone else, and opening up to bicker over Klein's bullet points of idiocy only allows him to maintain some sort of minimal dignity in this.

All those bullet points are stupid. No one thinks that. Atrios doesn't think that (and I can say that even though I'm not Atrios). It's just stupid, and entertaining this putz' strawman ad hominem is a waste of effort.

You know what would be really funny? It'd be really funny if he said, "Atrios eats babies while jerking off to images of Chairman Mao!" and was met with complete silence.

Time magazine's marketing department appreciates your hits in their web site logs.

On Joe's first point ("believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world"), I'm gonna need a little more info. Does he mean currently, or is he talking all the time? Because, until George W. Bush took the wheel, I was pretty happy with our position in the world in that regard (occasional dicey aspirin factory bombing and CIA funding of terrorist groups aside, of course). Joe: Do you mean NOW, or all the time?

I'm so flattered.

Well, Klein surely does know smug.

I looked it up in the dictionary. Next to the definition of "smug" they had a picture of Klein.

I wouldn't call Atrios a purveyor of extreme anything though I sometimes wonder about his taste in music.

I don't know whether the problem is that Klein is a superficial thinker or a superficial writer -- as Lou Reed observed in song long ago, between thought and expression lies a lifetime.

But whether Klein himself is the former or the latter, his characterization of the putative views of extreme left-wingers obstructs rather than facilitates debate in exactly the same way his characterization of his own views does: They are not really political positions; rather they are exercises in rhetoric. In fact, almost all of them depend on one rhetorical device, the very-fun-to-spell synecdoche.

For anyone, on any part of the ideological spectrum whose politics are neither superficially held nor expressed, to use this list as a standard by which to classify positions as extremist (or, for that matter, as positions) simply cheapens both thought and debate.

That is, in a nutshell, the Kleinian dilemma. I think that the Iraq war was an individual act of monumental stupidity that occurred in the context of America's fundamentally imperialist nature and that it was both promoted and exploited by the very real political influence regularly exercised by some forces -- both domestic and foreign -- in control of substantial corporate capital.

I base this opinion on evidence that I am pretty sure would meet a reasonable-doubt standard if it were presented in court. However, I do not believe that America's fundamental nature is WHOLLY or SOLELY imperialist; nor (obviously, given that they are two separate, though sometimes related, entities) do I believe that either monumental individual stupidity or the political influence of substantial corporate capital is WHOLLY or SOLELY responsible for the decision to go to war

But Klein's terms do not allow for me or for anyone to hold these things to be true as part of a larger whole, despite the considerable basis in fact for doing so. Per his list, they are available only as absolutes. Which are, by definition, often extremist.

However, that's "often" not "always." For example, I do believe in some absolutes, as does the Constitution. Furthermore I believe that some actions that are a fundamental PART of the war in Iraq violate them. And I am pretty sure, though not certain, that the factual bases from which the belief derives would meet a reasonable-doubt standard if presented in court.

I assume that if a court validated my opinion, Klein would cease rhetorically to represent it as extremist. But, again, I am not certain.

Klein uses the same rhetorical Tribalism practiced by extreme right-wing conservatives like Limbaugh, Falwell, Coulter, etc., but in a manner closer to neoclowns like Tom Friedman.

Their goal is to stifle progressive/Democratic dissent by sticking a negative label on anyone who challenges or disagrees with them.

Friedman whined endlessly about a mythical "anti-war left," pretending that the likes of Brent Scowcroft, Gen. Zinni, Gen. Wes Clark, Jim Webb, Pat Buchanan, the late Pope John Paul, and scores of others weren't prominent Iraq invasion opponents from the get-go.

But Friedman at least puts a some effort into his sophistry, dropping names like Michale Moore to pretend the latter typifies all Iraq war opponents. Klein just throws around the label, like a child calling names on a playground.

If we take this list at face value as describing "left wing extremists", then in Klein's mind the equal and opposite list of these attributes should represent "right wing extremists." Unfortunately, the equal and opposite list seems to describe the mainstream of Republican/Conservative thought in this country. How refreshing if Klein would admit to what thinking people figured out a long time ago.

Haven't we heard enough stupid comments from Klein to put him somewhere with likes of Jonah Goldberg as a complete moron.

I think Klein is very delusional about "extremist liberals" in that he seems to believes that Duncan is somehow an outright ignorant and thus a radical, (too bad Atrios so popular).

I don't see liberals going around talking about imperialism! In fact it looks like Klein is "just making shit up" really, now that somebody called him to task, and thus like the old comment: It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

So when is TIME going to ditch the fool because, really, isn't Klein becoming a rather an juvenile embarrassment? If Klein really believes that Duncan is some kind of liberal psycho than why is it that for some inexplicable reason, insecure little Kleinie feels compelled to this never-ending bicker with bloggers like a two year-old?

So, if you don't believe that the US, as it exists at this moment, is not " The bestest ever...", you're and 'Extremist'? That seems a little...scary.

Having Klein confirm for me what I already knew...that, yes I am a left-wing extremist, I feel no compunction in saying, "The man's an idiot."

The value of this list is not so much Klein's pique - really, who cares about Klein? Rather, it gives us the parameters relative to which the MSM will report the news. The fear of being mistaken for a left wing extremist drives so many of them. Take, for instance, the idea that the left wing extremist thinks the U.S. is the cause of Islamic extremism. Taking this as a rule, your WAPO or NYT reporter is going to be disinclined to hark back to the glory days of the CIA supplying the jihadists in Afghanistan with anything they wanted - or to the long history of allowing the Saudis to lavishly finance Wahabist mosques and missions everywhere from Morroco to Indonesia. So, when the Bush administration returns to these policies - viz Sy Hersch's story - it won't get much play. Nor will our "ally" Saudi Arabia's financing of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq - after all, given our outspoken alliance with the Saudis, that might imply, heavens, that the U.S. is supporting Islamic extremism. So there will be fifty reports on rather foggy connections between Iran and the Sad'r militia (not even the closer connection to the Badr militia, favored by Bush) to one on the Gulf shiekdom's shoveling of money for arms to the Sunnis. If one wants to solve one of the odder puzzles of 9/11 - why the two countries most involved with the hijackers, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, got a free pass, while we invaded a bystander, Iraq - it is good to go back to Klein's parameter - to question American foreign policy is the mark of extremism.

So, Klein has done us all a service. Copy that list and apply it to the way the news is reported - it almost gives you a map of the usual MSM skewing.

Got straw?

It is good to know that using "harsh" and "intolerant" language to attack liberals is ok - just not conservatives and moderates. Now, would those be self proclaimed moderates, real moderates, or Joe Lieberman?

-dismissively mocks people of faith, especially those who believe that crime and poverty are the primarily the fault of society

;)

He left off

-refuses to answer the question of, "have you stopped beating your wife yet" with a simple yes or no

Joke Line sez:

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

Wow. Just wow. Only an historical illiterate could say such a thing.

I'd like to recommend that Joe Klein get Eugene Jarecki's "Why We Fight", watch it (because Klein obviously has not a clue about American military history of the last century), then explain to all of us liberal extremists why exactly it is that the US is not an imperialist power.

If the US is not an imperialist power, why do we have military bases in, or fly-over rights for, nearly every nation on Earth???

If the US is not an imperialist power, why has our nation meddled so often in the affairs of foreign countries (particularly in this hemisphere)???

Seems to me that there is a contradiction on his list...

If I believe that American Imperialism is the cause of Islamic Radicalism then I am very unlikely to close mindedly mock people of faith as I view their extremism as a result rather than a cause of inequity...

If he means that American Imperialism has allowed Islamic Radicalism to spread rampantly, I doubt anyone would disagree with that...

...and the invasion of Iraq has to be the greatest act of imperialist hubris since the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Who the fuck is Joke Line fooling... besides himself???

So Communists are extremists. No news there. But what about those who don't like the regulation and progressive taxation of capitialism? Are those market fundamentalists extremists as well?

Strikes me that Klein has enumerated how narrow-minded conservatives *feel* whenever somebody criticizes the can-do-no-wrong USofA.

Using Klein's definitions (even if I provided explainations for these beliefs, I would be considered a leftie extremist.

But in Europe, I would be considered a Social Democrat and firmly in the mainstream.

It’s simple. The “liberal” media has become more and more conservative for decades. That has
allowed relatively conservative news programs and pundits to be labeled as centrist or even
liberal. Now that the internet, a media source not controlled by corporate money, has given voice
to the truly liberal, fake centrists/liberals are being exposed. Klein must now try to redefine the
liberal blogosphere as extreme in order to keep his centrist/liberal label.

I think it's great that I can come to a blog called Horse's Mouth to get good commentary on the biggest horse's ass in journalism.

Klein is laughably naive. His rhetoric is strewn with cliches about what he THINKS left wing extremists are.

I'm a liberal, but fall into NONE of his silly
categories. Amen. Oh, yes...I believe in God.

Time magazine has Joe Anonymous Klein for the same reason Fox has Allen Colmes on their Hannity Show; the appearance of being 'fair and balanced'.

I hold most of the listed beliefs. Unfortunately for Klein, I'm a moderate. IMVHO, extremism is an absolute concept. The country's rightward plummeting does not make an extremist out of someone whose opinions haven't changed since they were generally regarded as a centrist.

Consider the opposite: is a Fascist not an extremist, regardless of whether or not s/he is living in Nazi Germany sharing the views of a majority of her concitizens?

Can't we just call it a day and say that American Imperialism may not be the cause of Islamic Radicalism, but it's not exactly helping?

"Progress of a sort" ... indeed.

I've for decades been praying that conservatives would open their thick maws and speak their piece ... the better to sink my own teeth into the sick flesh of bourgeois liberalism.

There are some who think that the bourgeois revolution is a pox, i.e. fundamentalist republicans and such. There are some who think that the bourgeois revolution is complete and must be safe-guarded, i.e. the yuppies.

The point is to attain the emancipation project; the conservatives' foundations can give us something to stand on while we clear the bell towers of over-fed bats.

here's me. there's joe klein. one of us is primarily an evil NATO extremist stupidity, well regulated and progressively taxed; the other fundamentally tends to blame unfair aspects of monumental responsibilities for gay radicalism (as opposed to having eternal problems that need improvement) and believes the fault of society is the best harsh, vulgar, intolerant consequence in imperialistic history. which is which? mwa ha ha ha ha.

What a train wreck and to think that Joe Klein is regarded as the patron saint of "liberal" punditry in the 21st century.......... lord help us all..

on that note I think he may have missed a few

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

- wears Birkenstocks

- showers less than 3 times a week

- finds it acceptable for women to have under arm hair

- can only listen to music while under the influence of mind altering substances

Fuck. I just read the list and I'm a fucking extremist! I didn't know it...but of course, in my head, I read conditions into them such as:"I believe the US is a force for evil" Why yes, I do believe that when we have evil people controlling the nation who do evil.

Klein fails to distinguish between people who think some of these things about Bush versus the U.S. in general.

Still, kudos, Greg, for eliciting this much in any way!