Joe Klein and the Bully Bloggers

"But the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. Anyone who doesn't move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable. Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics. "

---Beware the Bloggers' Bile by Joe Klein from Time Magazine.

Comments

[Mark]

Joe Klein is simply furious that, rather than being able to manufacture elite opinion out of whole cloth, he now has to condescend to acknowledge the opinions of actual citizens. The context of this quote is Klein trying unsuccessfully to defend himself against criticism of an incident in which he misreported the way the Rep. Jane Harman voted on an Iraq bill and then proceeded to extrapolate lessons for all Democrats from an example that was 180 degrees from the truth.

That's only the latest example of Klein, ostensibly the single liberal in print at Time, spending large amounts of time attacking Democrats and validating right-wing talking points. Yes, some of the discourse on the internet is uncivil, but the good thing about it is that we don't have to listen to tools like Joe Klein tell us what we think about the issues of the day--we can actually speak for ourselves.