The following piece is published on Pop and Politics as well as HuffPost's OffTheBus.
Time magazine columnist Joe Klein appears to be the latest Judith Miller-- ie, a careerist journalist and damned shoddy reporter who has been manipulated by the "well-placed sources" he depends on for advancement and whom he will protect at all cost. A column he wrote last week has been dissected by Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake, and many others and shown to be--in addition to completely muddled--shot through with planted misinterpretations by Republican sources who, through Klein, decried recent Democratic federal eavesdropping legislation as weak on terror for proposing to prevent the U.S. government from eavesdropping on calls made outside the U.S. by non-citizens-- or as Rush Limbaugh might put it, "for providing lilly-livered protections for those who mean to do us harm."
Klein made some half-assed excuses for this blatantly false interpretation of the legislation that culminated in him saying that, in effect, the House bill he had been so stridently writing about was in fact too complicated for him to unravel, that he had "neither the time nor the legal background to figure out" who was interpreting its provisions correctly. The comment thread following this craven backpedaling is priceless.
Best, and the reason for this post, is that after dodging for days, Time finally gave up Priscilla Painton as the editor of the column. Greenwald and journalist Jane Hamsher called Painton to ask about Klein's sources and to find out what Time was going to do about the errors in the column. After ten seconds, that's right, Time Deputy Managing Editor Priscilla Painton hung up the phone! That's how much Time magazine (circulation 4 million) thinks about investigative journalism! You can leave a polite message for Priscilla, asking her to come clean about the sources behind Joe Klein's misinformation, at: 212-522-2022, or you can email Priscilla's boss, Rick Stengel at: richard_stengel@timemagazine.com. Please do!
UPDATE: KLEIN SOURCE REVEALED. PETER HOEKSTRA COMES FORWARD.
That is the goal of CORPORATIONS:
TO DESTROY ALL COMPETITION!
The goal of COMMUNITY and CITIZENSHIP:
TO INSIST UPON FAIR AND EQUITABLE VALUE FOR
MONEY AND SERVICE!
NOTHING FAIR ABOUT FASCIST CORPORATE COLLUSION BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE CORPORATIONS!
ONLY LOSERS ARE THE COMMUNITIES AND CITIZENS OF THE NATION THEY CONTROL!
In our next round of voting for 'Most Popular' of Anywhere Jr High 2008, can we please find someone that is an adult? A real adult. 16 years of two 12 year old boys in the White House has caused all of us some difficulties.
I think we all can agree we need an adult to run Anywhere Jr High for awhile. May be then the media will stop acting like nerdy wanna bees and start doing their jobs, may be decisions will be made that is for the good of the many and not to punish the few, may be we will get our piggy bank in order and stop lying about our 12 year old spreading spree at the mall. May be we can stop playing toy soldiers for the sake of amusing a sick and twisted 12 year old mind (yes Bush, thats you)...may be we can stop humiliating and demoralizing those groups that are not like us. May be can stop putting the nerds into the trash can. May be.
My choice for adult in the White House is Obama. He rise rise above, unite the playground and get us all to live up to our potential. May be even Joe and Judith.