Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Joe Klein, David Frum and a BBC News Reader Walk Into an Alternate Universe



For those of you who don't remember him, Joe Klein (aka. "Jokeline") is the Button Gwinnett of American media Both Siderism -- definitely one of it's Founding Fathers, but if you threatened the average American at knife-point they could not tell you who he was or what he did.

So, a quick history.

Once upon a time Joe Klein wrote one article in which he very grudgingly acknowledged that on one, specific occasion the Left kinda, sorta had a point (cited via my post on this subject from 2009):
The dyspepsia of the left blogosphere is less easily explained, though. It has its roots in an issue the left got right and almost everyone else got wrong: the war in Iraq. There is still intense, unabated anger on the left because its opposition to the war was often ridiculed and almost always ignored in 2003
But to keep the icky hippie off of his clothes he buried his extremely reluctant acknowledgement of the Left being right in a typically long, bitchy Jokeline tirade against the otherwise unrelieved idiocy of the Left, which started with the title --
The Left's Idiocy on Health Reform
-- and grumped along, one defensive, snide, "Please don't hit me, I swear I hate Libruls tooooo!" paragraph after another. Here is a sample:
But there is a great irony here: villagery is a trope more applicable to those making the accusation than to those being snarked upon. The left-wing blogosphere, at its worst, is a claustrophobic hamlet of the well educated, less interested in meaningful debate than the "village" it mocks. (At its best, it is a source of clever and well-informed anti-Establishment commentary.) Indeed, it resembles nothing so much as that other, more populous hamlet, the right-wing Fox News and Limbaugh slum ...
Which is why, seven years later, for reasons known only God and the ghost of Henry Luce, Time Magazine still pays Jokeline actual money to be part of the Beltway's own “madogiwa zoku" -- those who sit idly by the window...and crank out ridiculous Both Siderism piece-work.

And why, like the poorly weighted remains of an incompetent mob hit, Jokeline still bobs to the surface of the great Beltway swamp every now and then, all bloated and awful.  This time around, we find Jokeline sitting for an "debate" yesterday with David Frum on the BBC where he said this:
BBC news reader:  ...How would you define the Trump voter?

Klein:  Well, according to the polls, the Trump voter is  white, less educated and angry.  It is an anger that has been fed for the last 10 or 20 years from right wing talk radio...

(wait for it)

(wait for it)

...but also from left wing demagogues.

Attaboy, Joe!  For that you get a cookie, a pat on the head and you get to keep charging his hotel bar tab to Time magazine.

But what is really amazing in this exchange is former George Bush speechwriter, glowing Bush Administration hagiographer, and political wind-sock, David Frum, who -- without ever acknowledging or apologizing for his role in the Bush clusterfuck -- has figured out which way the wind is blowing now and has completely o'erleaped his colleagues and remade himself as...

...a Liberal blogger from 2006.



Which, first, wow.

And second, did I miss the big cattle call for people to step forward and speak terrible truths about the Bush Administration and the Republican party base? Because if there are now suddenly openings for people to say things out loud and on camera for which Liberal bloggers were being either roundly ignored or loudly vilified by hacks like David Frum and Joe Klein back in 2006. why not bring in some, I dunno, Liberals who were blogging back in 2006 instead of Time magazine Both Siderist madogiwa zoku like Joe Klein and a former George Bush speechwriter, Bush Administration hagiographer, and political wind-sock like David Frum?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Because, Driftglass, you are not in the rolodex.

There is a club, and you aren't in it.

And no, they are not looking for new members. You can leave your application in the round file by the door where it will get all of the attention DFB thinks it deserves.

Unfortunate as hell - but, we all know that the business of media is not news or analysis, or even commentary.

What happens to MSNBC if they can't keep the Wall Street legions happy? They don't believe there is a market for being right. There is a market, however, for telling the rich what they really want to hear.

The rest of us can go hang.

RUKidding said...

"...did I miss the big cattle call for people to step forward and speak terrible truths about the Bush Administration and the Republican party base?..."

Well, yes, apparently. It's was some weeks ago when Trump ripped the Bush Crime Syndicate a new one and spoke some factual truth about how the WBushCo regime in no way "kept America safe."

It appears that Frum - whorish hack that he is - saw his opportunity and is snatching and grabbing where he can. Who knows? Maybe Frum had some smidgeon of ethics whilst fluffing W & Cheney and is enjoying telling some version of the "truth" for a change. But it appears that Trump has made it acceptable to speak freely about the Reign of Error of W.

I don't even want to get into how vile and bilious this is, and then with Klein - and sadly, I remember Klein all too well, no matter how damn hard I try to forget that scummy rat turd - adjuring the DFHs to, ya know, be all positive-y and do, you know, something "useful" for a change, like, you know (duh), register some voters and drive them to the polls.

Suck on it, Joe, you lazy bastard. You've never done anything useful in your entire worthless senseless "life." You know nothing about anything, and condescendingly adjuring me about registering voters is beyond the pale. Schmegge.

Anonymous said...

Becuz you're illegitimate Driftglass. How many times do have to be told? A prophet is without honor save in his own country. It does not matter if Cassandra is right. It only matters if she has big boobs, is blonde and has juicy insider sycophant gossip to spill.

mainmata said...

What Jeff said. While I don't expect anything better from MSNBC and the rest of degraded TV/Radio "newsmedia" I had expected better of the Beeb. Sigh.

RUKidding said...

The BBC, esp BBC America, is just Fox Lite, same as NPR (which I call National Propaganda Radio). My friends across the small pond in the UK have assured me for decades, really, that the BBC is nothing more, nothing less than a propaganda outlet. Just gotten worse and more obvious in recent years. So, just an FYI, and sorry to disabuse any notions that BBC provides any "better quality" info than anything here in the USA.

I duly note that the Beeb interviewer began by asking if it wasn't really OBAMA's fault for the rise of the Trumpeters. Witness that and realize what it means. Just saying...

steeve said...

NPR is "nice polite republicans".

And as with every thought a conservative has ever had, we already spent years trying it and it didn't work. Being positive and congenial to the right didn't work, so we aren't doing it anymore.

Potomacker said...

It's all about tailoring. You need to have one of those special suit jackets that looks good on both the outside and the inside. Stylishly bankable under all regimes.

Unknown said...

Right on.