FISA Confusion and Correction

First off I appreciate that you took the trouble to issue a correction. It's difficult to defend a position when you don't have the facts on your side let alone have them straight. I still think this however represents a serious problem:

if we can’t rebuild the non-toxic atmosphere of bipartisan cooperation that served the country through most of its history few

Considering the fact that much of your motivation reflects unsettled business from the last time the country was seriously divided, your fantasies about "non-toxic bipartisanship" are a large reason that we're still headed in a seriously wrong direction.

Allowing lawless behavior to stand unchallenged is not bipartisanship, it is capitualtion.

I was clearly wrong to state as fact something that might not actually be in the bill. BUT, we are talking about relatively obscure and unimportant technical details and my larger point—that a bipartisan, veto-proof House FISA was possible, but was opposed by the Democratic leadership—is still true. That bill would have included provisions, like the “basket" reviews, that George Bush clearly opposes. I think the political value of beating Bush on this issue, in a bipartisan fashion, could have set an important, if belated, precedent for the limits of executive power. The Senate FISA bill still might accomplish that.

Yeah, Joe want to 'limit executive power' by literally endorsing the lawlessness and disregard of Bush's partners in crime who knowingly violated the FISA Act.

I mean, could Joe's complete and utter intellectual corruption be more obvious than this?

As to Joe's falsehood about a bipartisan solution coming out of the Intelligence Committee... Joe doesn't bother to acknowledge that these "negotiations" weren't going anywhere.... and that last spring these same Republicans screwed the Democrats on the FISA compromise that had been negotiated. Most of us learn as children not to touch a hot oven -- I suspect that Joe could have a very successful life as a criminal, because by now his fingerprints must have been completely burned off.

The Democrats (and that includes the Democrats on the Intelligence Committee, not just Pelosi) acted because they weren't about to get burned again waiting and waiting for the GOP to compromise until the end of the year when a bill had to pass, and screw the Democrats again.

And the fact is that the only substantive amendments offered by the Joe's good friend and torture enabler (or is that redundant?) Peter Hoekstra (the Intelligence Committee's minority ranking member) was about telecom immunity. So I really don't think that the Dems need to be accused of being soft on terror... but the GOP can certainly be accused of being soft on criminals -- as long as the are big campaign contributors.

Maybe we'll get beyond the cynicism and mistrust cultivated by the Bush Administration, someday, but it ain't gonna happen as long as BUSH IS STILL PRESIDENT. It's a BIG mistake to give this crook more tools to spy on political enemies (and journalists?) in the name of "bipartisanship."

Thanks for the correction. You're still wrong, though, on the larger point.

Boot out the crooks. Then we can talk bipartisanship -- preferably with a Democratic president.

Once integrity is destroyed, Joe, it's not easily won back. That's true on all different levels.

Maybe the Republicans could stop filibustering Democratic legislation; that might be a nice show of good faith, to get the ball rolling, don't you think?

You'd never advocate such a thing, though, and it's not going to happen, so . . . .

What's so wrong about civil rights for terrorists, anyway? Don't they come under the general category of "human beings?"

"Terrorism" itself is a very malleable term. Last year's "terrorists" are now our allies in Iraq, or handn't you noticed?

oh, btw.... Joe reveals why he is so wrong so often in this post...

Democrats say that I was wrong to report that the bill includes a FISA court review of individual foreign terrorist targets who might communicate with U.S. persons, although it does include an annual “basket” review of procedures used by U.S. intelligence agencies to target foreign suspects. The Republican Committee staff disagrees and says my reporting is correct.

Joe gets all his information from Republicans...

oh, and as usual Joe lies about what he actually said, which is this....

The current House legislation requires that every foreign terrorist target be passed through the FISA court because that target may potentially communicate with U.S. Citizens or resident aliens.

there is a world of difference between requiring a FISA warrant for every foreign terrorist "who might communicate" to someone in the US (and even this is essentially a lie, because there has to be a reason to suspect that a target will call the US), and requiring a warrant for all "foreign terrorist targets".

Joe won't admit the key fact --- that the bill he wants will allow the government to listen in on every phone call from anyone overseas.... and Joe actually trusts Bush to not politicize the gathering and retention of intelligence.... and he want to make sure that the telecom companies look the other way when the Bush administration starts targeting the phone calls of Bush's political enemies here at home...

Joe would have fit right in with Stalin's supporters...

This is a graciously written update, which I think should be applauded. I like how it completely lacks snideness.

But as for that point about bipartisan cooperation serving this nation throughout much of its history--that doesn't jibe with the historians I've read, particularly with respect to the nineteenth century.

Two classics come to mind: Michael Schudson's "The Good Citizen" and Glenn Altschuler and Stuart Blumin's "Rude Republic."

If you believe the historians, bipartisanship is a counterfactual ideal. Counterfactual ideals like that, and like rational consensus, certainly have their uses as guides to better action. But trying to ground them in historical fact, as opposed to ethical desire, doesn't work.

And as others have noted here, when you're dealing with amoral radicals like the current batch of republicans, compromise is a real sucker's game.

Bush's idea of compromise is when the other side agrees with him. The Republican Party is holding the country to ransome and obstructing the government in order to support the petty dictator Bush. Compromising with fantics is a game that cowards play. Real compromise only happens when both sides are willing to give on some issues. Bush never gives on anything. The left is not the problem when it comes to compromise Klein. You should be lecturing the other side about that issue.

Good comments here. To which I will only add to, by pointing out your reflexive desire to grant immunity/pardons to the rich and powerful while hundreds of thousands of mostly poor people rot in prisons for victimless or petty crimes. Perhaps the bong-hit crowd is less represented than the apple martini crowd on the Council for Foreign Relations, which coincidentally(?), is sponsored by Verizon. Yes, lukusiak...I'm part of the bong hit crowd.

I want to give you credit for being a mensch. But...

Bipartisanship for its own sake is not in the best interests of the country, and bipartisanship for its own sake is not the way this country was governed for most of its history. Neither is bipartisanship an excuse to throw away civil liberties, respect for which has been a hallmark of this country's greatness from its very inception. It's when we lose sight of that -- slavery, women's suffrage, Jim Crow, the internment of the Japanese all come to mind -- that our country has gone astray. All those things, of course, enjoyed "bipartisan support." Ultimately, a thing is right or it is not; you either support civil liberties and the rule of law as the foundation of what has made this country what it is, or you do not. Hiding behind "support for the Democrats," or a love of "bipartisanship" doesn't disguise that.

I'm still impressed you have enough of a pair, not to mention the simple decency, to go this far.

Well, it looks like p_luk and suart_z win the day on this one.

EXCEPT for the last:

****
I believe that Republican concessions (on “basket warrants”) and Democratic concessions (on immunity for telecoms who allowed access to information, after receiving a direct written request from the government, in a way that would be legal under the new law) are a small price to pay for the larger principle of defining the 4th Amendment rights of US residents in the light of new technologies.
****

A small price to pay? Why pay ANY price, Joe? Do we barter a slot for yet ANOTHER pig at the long, long, trough of Republican corruption for rights which, under the Constitution, are given gratis to our citizens?

I guess I'm STILL one of those "civil liberties extremists"!

Do you remember just who it was that said if we lost our rights in a fit of fear, they would consider themselves the victors?

THAT was Bin Laden.

Take a toke, Joe...

53, I'm still trying to figure out what this means...

I believe that Republican concessions (on “basket warrants”) ...

There was no GOP concession on Basket warrants...that was a Democratic concession.

A basket warrant allows the US to listen in to all communications of a foreigner who is "targeted", including all communications with all Americans, rather than having to get a warrant for every American that the target talks to.

(Its important to note that "target" isn't necessarily a terrorist. We 'target' (at least I hope we do) any foreigner who is acquainted with someone we suspect of terrorism because they can provide information about the movements/activities of the suspected terrorist.)

In a law enforcement environment, all electronic surveillannce warrants are essentially 'basket warrants' -- but the standard is far higher for a domestic criminal warrant (there has to be probably cause, etc.) than for intensive surveillance of foreigners (basically, there is no 'standard' other than potential to provide information.) Groups like the ACLU wanted to require individual warrants for each person in the US that a foreign 'target' listened in on, because the criteria for 'targetting' is not that there is "probable cause" that the target committed a crime. Democrats accepted the concept of a 'blanket warrant' that allows the intelligence community to listen in on the communication of all 'targets', including all communication with Americans.

Joe doesn't apparently understand this, and has confused the concept of "blanket warrants" with oversight (especially as it refers to minimization procedures). The Republicans don't want the courts to have oversight to ensure that the law is being followed, nor do they want intelligence committees to be told whether the rules were being followed. Instead, the GOP wants the administration to ensure that they are following their own rules - and not even bother to give reports to the congressional oversight committees....

The Dems wanted court oversight -- and regular reporting to the oversight committees on compliance with the law.

This kind of idiotic mistake is par for the course with Joe, unfortunately....

He seems to think that "bipartisanship" means give in to the GOP side of the aisle.

If that is the case, why bother with opposition at all. It's so reasonable, I mean, if we ALL JUST WENT AWAY things would run much, much smoother. Yeah...

Maybe we were supposed to trade the "basket warrents" for a deal in which ONLY those telecoms that "prove" they were given direct orders by the government. The flipside being if we didn't give them that those warrents then they would push for blanket amnesty.

I don't think we should give them a plugged nickel. If they want it that bad, then they will take what they can get, but they always seem to have some angle to hold over the heads of reformers that effective gut any reforms attempted. That's why the Dems are seen as having no backbone.

I can see presses in the WH running overtime. Couriers will be handing out the requesite documents needed by those telecom CEOs to dodge that bullet. I can just see it...

You will have to forgive me, but I truly do believe that the Republicans are trying to negotiate the eradication of their own tracks, so that future investigations don't reveal the true extent of what these guys have been doing this past 7 years.

I'm VERY suspicious of these guys. It seems everywhere one looks, there is always some company or another looking for a way out - and Republicans "negotiating" the route.

I'm sick of their euphemisms, too. A "basket" implies smallness, but "basket warrents" cast a wide net. A "contractor" is a mercenary.

It sounds like nitpicking, but it's not. If their policies were bereft of these euphemisms, they would sound as callous and cold-blooded as they actually are.

I think your assertion about rebuilding a bipartisan atmosphere is childish and naive. But I'm glad that you've admitted your mistake here. Would that more pundits had the sense of responsibility you show here.

But also...be more careful next time.

Joe -

I appreciate your going back to address your mistake, which is something that not very many pundits do.

However, before you started mocking Democrats for demanding too much oversight of government surveillance, you should have really been clear on what the bill says. You weren't, and for you to come back now and assume the role of referee between two sides of a thorny debate is hard to swallow.

I know the details are complicated, but the distinction between "inside the country" and "outside the country" is comprehensible even to us mere mortals. This is important. If you can't be asked to know what the bill says, then please leave it to the grownups to protect our basic freedoms without your sage counsel.

Joe, a correction posted at 6:17 on Saturday evening of Thanksgiving weekend on an Internet blog is simply insufficient and unequal to the harm done. Will a correction be appearing in the next dead tree Time? Or in your next column in dead tree Time?

Additionally, (and I'm sure your knowledgable commenters will correct me if I'm wrong) but I don't think the provision of broad, wholesale information by telecoms to the government without a warrant would become legal under the FISA law revisions passed by the House. Your basing telecoms immunity this falsity appears to be a dodge.

Finally, can you or someone at Time explain how these errors made it past your editors? You know, those terrifying editors who drive you into the Vodka bottle?

(For the commenters: It's really time to start taking media editors to task for errors and rubbish published in the "professional" media. You know, those vaunted editors who supposedly differentiate "professional" journalism from the Internet rabble. By their standards they are to blame, not the writers/reporters. By their standards they should provide transparency and accountability on these matters. It's time to start shining the light on them.)

Well, having mocked Joe for the last column he wrote, I think that it is only fair to congratulate him on facing up to his factual error, after getting some pretty sharp (and yes, abusive) comments from the peanut gallery. I would prefer to believe that the people who drafted a law were not so sharply divided about what it allows, but given the dangerously partisan state of affairs at present, I am not wholly surprised.
In my opinion, annoyance at Joe's factual slip is understandable, but I am not sure that greeting his acknowledgment with abuse is very constructive, or likely to foster much dialogue for the future. Comparisons to e.g. Stalin's henchmen are overblown, and unjustified. If Joe really was like that, I doubt very much that he would be writing these columns, or responding, or acknowledging errors. If someone would care to show when Stalin's sidekicks did so, I should be interested to see it.
No doubt there will be cries of rage at the idea that achieving bipartisanship on important issues is desirable, but if possible, it certainly makes for better legislation and policy than the current Mexican standoff. Bear in mind that bipartisanship does not mean that everyone agrees on a given point - what it should achieve is a consensus of moderate and reasonable people. This seems preferable to an intolerant ideological purity on either side of the aisle. It also remains the best way to isolate dangerous extremists such as Bush and Cheney. Rejecting bipartisanship because "the other side are all evil" is neither honest, nor mature. Being careful about how one and when one achieves it is possible, and should be the goal of anyone who genuinely cares about the public good, rather than narrow and unsustainable ideologies.

Bear in mind that bipartisanship does not mean that everyone agrees on a given point - what it should achieve is a consensus of moderate and reasonable people.

SCHIP is not an example of this because in every other industrialized country SCHIP would be seen as a move to the right of where they are.

wow ... that non-wysiwyg preview really has to be fixed

"Rejecting bipartisanship because "the other side are all evil" is neither honest, nor mature. Being careful about how one and when one achieves it is possible, and should be the goal of anyone who genuinely cares about the public good, rather than narrow and unsustainable ideologies."

This straw man will not help facilitate compromise. Compromise is being rejected because the other side will simply not compromise. I won't dispute that they may be evil but that isn't the reason bipartisanship is impossible. The case of the Baker/Hamilton report is a perfect example of how compromise doesn't work with Bush and his fanatical followers. You can't get much more of a bipartisan agreement than it and the fanatics rejected it. The Democrats have proposed changes to the Iraq strategy and in the end have completely capitulated to the extremist Bush regime and its patsies in the Senate, including Joe Lieberman. Yet here we are again accusing the Left of being inflexible when the Left is the only side that has even tried to find common ground. Indeed the Left has continued to support the Iraq qaugmire solely on Bush's terms. I think the so-called "centrists" would be more effective if they set their sights on the root cause of the problem, rather than continuing to play the role of apologist and propagandist for the extremist Right.

p_l
(Its important to note that "target" isn't necessarily a terrorist. We 'target' (at least I hope we do) any foreigner who is acquainted with someone we suspect of terrorism because they can provide information about the movements/activities of the suspected terrorist.)

Even Jove nods.

There is absolutely no reason to think that the use of this surveillance will be limited to terrorism. In fact, since we know it began before there were any terrorist attacks, and since we know that the Bush administration did not consider the the threat of attacks from stateless individuals to be consequential, we know that terrorism was not the motivation for this expansion of executive power.

We don't know why people who are tapped are targeted, and it is a mistake to take as given that this program is intended solely, or even primarily, to detect terrorist plans.

Finally, we know for sure it doesn't work. Key 9/11 plotters were on a thought-to-be-dangerous list. The attack was not prevented--and it could have been. So it's a mistake, in my opinion, to let "targets" = "terrorists and the people who love them" become the way we talk about this issue.

For the commenters: It's really time to start taking media editors to task for errors and rubbish published in the "professional" media.

it should be kept in mind that Joe is not a reporter, but a columnist --- and the kind of rigorous fact-checking that goes into real journalism doesn't go into columns.

Nevertheless, its appalling that the editors of the magazine -- who at least has to check the piece at some point before it gets printed -- are completely oblivious to the facts concerning the FISA controversy and what the "controversial" provisions are.

People like Joe, Carney, and Stengel perceived everything as a partisan issue, and thus every process is a partisan process. The idea that one side is engaged in a wholesale assault on the Constitution, while the other side is trying to find ways to adjust to the new technological realities in a way that is consistent with the constitution, is alien to them.

But its more insidious than just seeing everything in partisan terms -- people like Joe, Carney, and Stengel are the keepers of the pre-existing narrative. It doesn't matter to them what the contents of a bill are; on certain issues like S-CHIP, the narrative assumption is "Democrats care about children, Republican don't", and the reporting comes down to "Democrats want to provide health care to children, Republicans are opposing their efforts because of partisanship."

With the FISA bill, the narrative is "Republicans are strong on national security, Democrats are weak". ) And in framing the FISA controversy as a partisan battle, the reporting comes down to "The GOP wants America to be secure, the Democrats are opposing their efforts by being 'civil liberties extremists' because of partisanship."

as noted above, Joe is still appallingly ignorant of what the bill is about -- he is completely clueless about "basket warrants" for instance, and thinks that they are about oversight. I can tell you with absolute certainty that Peter Hoekstra never "told [Joe] he would be willing to include 'basket warrants'" because Hoekstra was not merely demanding basket warrants, but demanding that they be issued without any independent oversight.

This episode explains everything you need to know about Klein -- that his columns are little more than Mad Libs using pre-existing narratives. Joe goes out and gets a few 'facts' (from Republican/neocon sources -- he sure didn't get this disinformation from Democrats or civil liberties advocates) and plugs them into the framework. It doesn't matter what the facts are, because everything is partisan, and everything fits into a pre-existing narrative.

This deserves to be screamed at Joe at the top of our lungs....

There is absolutely no reason to think that the use of this surveillance will be limited to terrorism.

Foreign diplomats, businessmen, human rights advocates ... the US can and will bug just about everyone if they think the surveillance can provide information that the US can use... all the US has to do is come up with a decent rationale, and the FISA courts will issue a warrant.

Civility demands that one note the graciousness of the person who is admitting error, and, because of that graciousness, give him or her a break going forward.

Not this time.

First, Joe fails the civil correction test. Rather than acknowledging and thanking those who pointed out his errors (which were well documented by reference to the actual statutes involved), he blames his Republican staff sources for misinforming him. In the DTT, an acknowledgment of error without any attribution is normal, but cannot be accompanied by an excuse for how the error came to be. In the blogosphere, especially when one of those who pointed out the error was a commenter, the etiquette is to always acknowledge and link to the correction. This is still more egregious an etiquette failure because in an update to the column, Joe responded derisively and inaccurately to p_lukasiak's comments on Joe's error. You need more of maxima to your culpa when error is compounded by rudeness. Saying that he was fooled by a he said, she said narrative from Hill staffers also violates the standard "thanks to all who helped me in this, but all errors are mine alone." That republican staffers lied to him does not excuse his not reading the legislation. And, you know, outside of civility and etiquette, this is (as Eric and others have commented) a disturbing illumination of how Joe practices journalism, and calls into question his other unsourced statements of fact.

Second, some of his correction is being done without acknowledgment of error. For example, without mentioning why, the word "order" has now been replaced by "request" when referring to telecoms violating the law and violating individuals civil rights (hence the civil penalties in the law). An explanation of why this change has been made, and acknowledgment that it was wrong to say that president can issue "orders" to private individuals that absolve them of guilt would have been part of a complete correction.

Third, the correction is filled with excuses. From blaming his sources who purposely misinformed him about the contents of the bill to the claim that this is all obscure and difficult again violates the etiquette of the correction. If you get something wrong, you got it wrong. It's your job to get it right. If you get it wrong, it is your responsibility, regardless of where in the process the failure of judgment occurred.

Fourth, there is not even a pro forma expression of regret. In fact, the entire tone of this correction is "Okay, so I got some of the details wrong. But I'm still right." This kinda thing may work in the NRO or other institutions which practice advocacy rather than journalism or analysis, but is unacceptable in a forum like Time. (Well, there are those Kristol columns, but that's a different problem; it's clear that those are advocacy columns and don't belong there. FTM, neither do Markos and Rove belong at Newsweek.)

So, sorry Joe, you cut yourself no slack here.

Now on the substance.

Joe continues to assert that this is a partisan issue. "Democrats" say the statutes mean what they say. "Republicans" say they don't. In the first place, it is not hard to find Republicans who are appalled by this. The interesting and still unwritten story of how the republicans* in federal office have become craven lickspittles does not change the fact that there are many republicans who do believe in the rule of law and the preservation of the constitution.

Then Joe says this:

In the coming campaign, Republicans will try to misrepresent any partisan FISA Democratic bill as providing “civil rights for terrorists.”

"Any partisan FISA Democratic bill"? So all that the Republicans have to do to attach the label "partisan" to any legislation is vote against it in a bloc? And then it is the action of "partisan" democrats? Joe's argument here is that because Republicans will flout the rule of law and the Constitution, and will then lie about the result, the Democrats should capitulate? ??!!??

And I thought the left blogosphere had lost their respect for the traditional media.

Joe is saying that he and his colleagues will be unable to report to the the public the fact that unless the republicans get to take the constitution off the table, they'll lie about the FISA law. And that if the legislation does go to the president's desk, he and his colleagues will be unable to report that the reasons the president vetoes the bill are false in a sufficiently clear and compelling way that the public can understand them at least as well as they explained the Monica Lewinsky issues.

And because the media is incapable of reporting the contents of this legislation accurately, the democrats should capitulate.

So Joe lists provisions that are currently in the law:

--That the use of new surveillance technologies, like data-mining, to monitor foreign intelligence targets is appropriate.
--That if a suspicious pattern of communications between a foreign target and a US person is found, a FISA warrant must be granted to monitor those communications.
--That the identities of any innocent US persons caught up in such data-mining operations should be “minimized” or blacked out.

The first one has never been legislated in any way. The US has been monitoring everything it can in foreign communications using its most advanced techniques for as long as there has been something called SIGINT.

The second two are de miminis elements of a constitutional program. The use of the word "innocent" in the third is very bad. What Joe means here, I hope, is "non-targeted American." You really can't be sloppy about this stuff.

And, sure, this would seem to be something nobody could object to, has always been part of FISA and has been routinely violated by the administration for its entire term of office.

This, apparently, counts for nothing in Joe's account book of balancing partisan positions.

And then there is this whopper of confusion and disinformation:

I believe that Republican concessions (on “basket warrants”) and Democratic concessions (on immunity for telecoms who allowed access to information, after receiving a direct written request from the government, in a way that would be legal under the new law) are a small price to pay for the larger principle of defining the 4th Amendment rights of US residents in the light of new technologies.

He still doesn't understand what basket warrants are, I don' think.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with telecom amnesty, except in one regard. (Of course one can just regard this as horsetrading--swapping a farm bill vote for a public housing vote.) The administration desperately wants telecom amnesty because they don't their members to go to jail. It may be that a jury could nullify the verdict because of the nature of the presidential "requests." They may be able to get out from under the criminal charges in a trial, and then get some class settlement on the civil charges that only costs them a few billion.

But the political appointees are looking at jail time. Now, of course, we've got a president who, for the first time in history, is being regarded by historians as the worst president ever during his term of office, so Bush may just issue blanket pardons. But this would be a telling blow to the unitary executive theory.

So this isn't about cutting the telecoms a break for going along. This is about whether the first branch is the first branch, or whether we have a semi-constitutional monarchy.

And, of course, Nachio IS facing jail time. For, he says, NOT going along, for holding to the rule of law. Now, his story is more complicated than this. But it would be a very sad day if the CEO who went to jail was the one who followed the law.

New technology

This is more republican BS. There's no new technology involved here. They're sitting on switches, monitoring everything that goes through. They coulda done that in 1998. The data mining techniques are not sophisticated; they're just keyword searches. The machines are faster, but the NSA has an unlimited budget, effectively, and could always simply apply brute force to expand their searches.

The only "new" issue here is that there is now so much more telecom traffic is routed through the US backbone, that some people claimed there was some ambiguity about whether a call from Paris to Marseilles that went via 60 Hudson Street would be designated a US call. As someone (I think it was p_l) said, a judge treating this as a call to the US would be exhibiting a degree of obtuseness and perversity that is hard to credit. IAC, there is no dispute about being clearer about that.

This is the only "new technology" issue that has been raised.

There's a reason why the guy who says that Joe is dangerous is the guy who writes for Wired. There is no significant new technology issue here.

Usually, Joe, the advice is to stop digging. But I don't think you can do that in this case. I think you're going to have to stay on this story, until you're getting largely right on the facts, and not just repeating "republican staffer" spin.

And, you know, you really should consider whether "access" is worth being made, repeatedly, to look like a fool by your sources.

----------------------
*All of you Democrats who are angry at your spineless representatives are missing a key point. In 1974 Howard Baker and Bill Cohen were among many who stood up. And it was Barry Goldwater who went to Nixon to tell him that it was over. With republicans voting in a bloc, there is very little that can practically be done.

Rob not in toronto anymore--

It's not a wysiwig issue (you're showing your age there, lad).

Its a bad blockquote implementation. They'll fix it at some point. The formatting has been steadily improving.

For me, the first paragraph blockquote font is the bigger issue.

What jayackroyd said.

Let me expand on two of his points:

1/ jayackroyd's notes that Joe's approach is basically: "Okay, so I got some of the details wrong. But I'm still right." That's exactly right. I find this to be incredibly telling about the kind of "journalism" that Joe practices (and that Time magazine allows Joe to practice on its behalf).

In essence, Joe's brand of journalism subordinates the goal of discovering and honestly reporting the facts to the more important goal of expressing "larger points" and Greater Truths -- i.e., advancing Joe's political and ideological preferences. This isn't journalism, it's political advocacy bordering on propaganda.

While Joe is all too willing to wield his "journalist" credentials as a rhetorical weapon, he apparently feels utterly unconstrained by the basic norms and values that have traditionally defined "journalism". The idea that the actual facts, the actual truth, can obscure some Greater Truth, the "larger point" Joe wants to make, so that he can just re-arrange the facts around the "larger point" he wants to make -- I'm beginning to see that this is the signature feature of Joe Klein's brand of journalism.

(I'm also beginning to see that Joe's brand of Greater Truths "journalism" exists to support a permanent campaign by Joe to advance the interests of the Joe Klein Party -- first, to promote Joe Klein himself as an important guy by virtue of his status as the Reasonable Bi-Partisan Serious Liberal who Attacks Crazy Democratic Liberals, and second, to promote the policies, strategies and tactics that Joe himself happens to favor.)

Joe is evidently comfortable with the idea that facts are mere details that can be ignored, re-arranged, selectively emphasized and even invented out of whole cloth when it is expedient to do so. Joe Klein has an agenda to advance, and it just doesn't occur to him to gather facts *before* advocating for that agenda, let alone take those facts into account when deciding what the agenda should be.

2/ jayackroyd notes that Joe doesn't take responsibility for getting facts wrong. This too is exactly right.

In fact, having written and held forth on FISA for *months* without having any idea what he was talking about, Joe now writes that it is "difficult to tell" whether his claims about the FISA legislation passed by the House are true or false, owing to the "technical nature of the bill’s language."

Can a more damning indictment of Joe's brand of journalism be imagined? Joe has been holding forth about FISA for months, and he is now forced to concede that the subject matter is just too technical and complicated for him... it's all a bit over his head! Has it occurred to anyone at Time magazine that a guy who can't understand the subject matter of the story shouldn't be the guy in charge of covering the story for Time magazine?

Does Joe -- does anyone at Time -- think it is a problem that Joe has been making categorical statements about the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program and proposed legislation relating to that program **for months** without having any knowledge and -- Joe now concedes -- without even having the **aptitude** to acquire the relevant knowledge?

Does any of this register at Time magazine? Does anyone in senior management care about this stuff? The guy running point on FISA for Time magazine completely bungles the story, and now casually admits that he can't understand the language of the proposals he's been attacking in the pages of Time magazine! He indicates that he hasn't taken any steps to discover the meaning of the proposals he's been attacking in Time magazine, other than to solicit the input of Republican staffers and (after the fact, one infers from the context) their Democratic counterparts as to the significance of those proposals!

Joe *literally* argues: Republicans say I was right. Democrats say I was wrong. It's all so complicated. What was I to do?

How about this: First, do some actual research. Spend some time actually reading the legislative proposals. (Joe clearly never did this in the course of *many months covering the story. This alone is gross professional negligence). Second, seek expert help with respect to technical areas you can't manage on your own. (Does this really need to be said? Think about how abased Time's standards of journalism have become for this point to warrant specific emphasis...) Third, don't mislead your readers by making claims about subjects you just don't understand. Fourth, and finally, when you're caught making stuff up, don't insist that the "larger point" was correct and that this "larger point" is what's really important.

This is the only "new technology" issue that has been raised.

I would disagree, because "new technology" covers not just technologies that allow us to spy on others, but the widespread adoption of "new" technologies by individuals and groups that present new challenges and opportunities for electronic surveillance.......

but other than that, I agree with everything you said! :-)

Glenn makes a good point:

There's no indication whether any correction will appear in the print magazine, but the online version of Klein's article contains no such correction and still contains all of his grave misstatements.

Correction policies on the web don't have to go as far as Slate's (they call attention to corrected errors in three different ways), but if Joe is saying that his previous post was wrong, it should be updated and corrected, with a link to this post.

This may be a little problematic, because Joe's correction here is something of a non-correction. That is, I think it'll be hard to identify inaccurate sentences and phrases, strikethrough them and then type correct sentences and phrases in a way that reflects the "clarifications" Joe makes here.

"immunity for telecoms who allowed access to information, after receiving a direct written request from the government, in a way that would be legal under the new law) are a small price to pay for the larger principle of defining the 4th Amendment rights of US residents in the light of new technologies."
We used to call "direct written requests" warrants. Joe's "small prices" are to be paid by the rest of us.

I'm not fully in agreement with the observation upthread that columns aren't expected to be subject to rigorous fact checking. While I agree that's the way it is now, it wasn't always that way, or we wouldn't be having this discussion. Joe has a responsibility to know his material, check his assertions, and offer an honest column. The difficulties in FISA had been well documented in an array of venues prior to his writing the egregious tripe he apologizes for now.

Joe needs to also recognize that many of his readers are fully aware the Overton window has shifted much further to the right than many of his readers are comfortable with. And, that shift was accomplished through Democratic efforts of bi-partisanship. Movement Conservatives have continued to be strongly partisan. Democrats have been conciliatory. It's beyond Joe to view that effort at conciliation as caving in, but the voters (and, Joe's readers) are clearly beginning to see it that way. There was an expectation for partisanship that got many Democrats elected in '06. Joe needs to update his thinking. Partisanship isn't a dirty word or a practice Democrats should shun. The Republicans have been wildly successful at advancing their agenda by being strictly partisan even when it put some Republicans at electoral risk.

Setting basket warrants aside for the moment - others are nailing that issue a good deal more ably than I can - for telecom immunity/amnesty. Only one question. Where are the incentives for corporations who adhere(d) to the law, in the face of the government's request that they break them, if the telecoms are granted amnesty? Joe would argue that since the government made the request, it somehow makes the situation different. It's not different. Government cannot legally make that request. A corporation cannot legally comply with such a request because the big-G government asked them to do so. And, 9/11 isn't a sufficient defense since it's clear such violations were occurring before 9/11 happened, AND failed to prevent 9/11 from happening, EVEN THOUGH there was good reason for the government to be concerned about such an attack.

No. You're still wrong Joe. You're still doing a poor job with your column and also with this blog. You've still got horrible sources. Your efforts in fact checking are severely constrained, and fatally flawed, as a result. Consequently, your thinking is still profoundly muddy. Work may create dis-utility, Joe, but that's why you get paid to do it.

[And, that's before I've read Glenn Greewald's most recent post. You may be in even worse shape than I've suggested you are.]

p_l

Yes, that's right Paul. But I've already written those off anyway on the day I got my EZPASS.

Any data they gather, they will use. See Whitfield Diffie's Privacy on the Line.

Now this business on telcos just handing over GPS information from cell phones is a different story. But I think we can be sure that even if the data exists in the private sector, it will be given to the government on request.

David Brin writes about the implications of this in The Transparent Society. And, of course, the biggest source of movement tracking isn't high tech at all--it's the ubiquitous cameras.

Did you know, for example, that it was security cameras that tracked down the Oklahoma City bomber? They synchronized them using the shake from the blast, and found photos of McVeigh on his way in.

Greenwald continues to pwn U:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/25/klein_fisa/index.html

My favorite passage: "I don't want the focus here to be on Klein himself. It's beyond well-established what he is and what a slothful, easily manipulated and dishonest "reporter" he is."

I'll bet you wish you could write like that, Joe.

So is the print version of Time going to run a correction, pointing out that Joe's original column was wrong and based on nothing more than Republican propaganda, which Joe now admits he accepted unquestioningly?

It is crystal clear that Mr. Klein blatantly lied in his most recent column. He didn't read the actual pending bills and he and Time published out-and-out whoppers misdescribing the actual provisions and their effect on the rule of law.

Instead of printing a retraction and an apology, he instead offers this piffle which will (apparently) not be published in the print version. This is pathetic and despicable - it is a wonder that someone with such low journalistic standards and practices can even maintain a job; much less continue to be one of the nation's "elite" columnists.

"Immunity" for telecoms would be a direct and patent abrogation of the rule of law. Period. There is no compromise possible. Either we trust the judicial system to ascertain the facts or we do not. Either persons within the U.S. have constitutional privacy protection or we do not. "Direct orders" or "formal written requests" from the executive branch do not constitute "warrants." It is neither complicated nor extremely technical. Anyone who understands the English language can comprehend this issue fully.

But Mr. Klein still doesn't understand the issue and wants Americans to compromise on the fundamental issue of the rule of law. It's not going to happen. No matter how many lying columns Mr. Klein writes; no matter how many ridiculous Republican right wing talking points Mr. Klein repeats.

While I agree that's the way it is now, it wasn't always that way, or we wouldn't be having this discussion. Joe has a responsibility to know his material, check his assertions, and offer an honest column.

Actually, the position of "newspaper columnist", especially on op-ed pages, was traditionally reserved for highly esteemed reporters whom the owners/editors of the paper felt could be relied upon to offer reasonable opinions based on their broad knowledge of issues. As a result, op-ed pages were little more than repositories of conventional wisdom (imagine every column was written by the bastard child of David Broder and David Brooks) -- but there was no question that these columnists would only present real "facts".

The modern "op-ed" columnist is the result of efforts to "enliven" the op-ed pages... a place where the public could hear both sides of the argument on controversial issues -- with the assumption that there would be intellectual honesty on both sides. This devolved into columnists who see there role as advancing a purely partisan agenda (especially among right-wingers) with little concern for intellectual honesty. Unfortunately, the perogatives of columnists (they aren't fact checked) remained...

The insistence of immunity is the most troubling to me.
The precedent that is established is from this point forward any administration can ask anything (spying on our own citizens is so beyond the pale) with the promise that there will be a Get Out of Jail Free card if they are found out. Which is the only reason this is an issue now-they were caught.

Why don't you try reading the actual bill instead of talking to republican and democrats? It's called reporting. Rather than just talking to advocates on both sides, why don't you try it. Here's the text of the bill:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.03773:

You made so many mistakes about FISA that it isn't even funny.

Wiretapping is bad no matter who what when or why.

Privacy for all people is a fundamental human right and support of anything short of that shows you to not be a true Progressive.

Nice try to dig yourself out though Joe.

I may have made a mistake in my column this week about the FISA legislation passed by the House..

SURE DID, JOE, YOU OVERPAID GOP HACK. IT'S OFFICIAL, IF YOU'RE GOING BE A GOP MOUTHPIECE, I DEMAND YOU PUT JOE KLEIN (R) AFTER EVERY PIECE YOU WRITE. CAN'T WAIT TILL MONDAY: I'M CANCELING MY PRINT SUBSCRIPTION.

That is so rare--the all caps left of center personal attack post--that one always wonders whether it's real.

Joe, just hand Glenn Greenwald the keys to your office on the way out. Good bye.

" Had Klein even bothered to read the Democrats' bill before calling it "well beyond stupid" and passing on lies about it, he would have had a real story. This:

Last week, House Democrats passed a bill that allows the government to eavesdrop on foreigners outside of the U.S., but requires court approval to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens inside the U.S. But GOP operatives/politicians have spent the week telling reporters that the bill does the opposite, falsely claiming that it gives the same rights to Terrorists that it gives to U.S. citizens.

Those are the objective facts. That is actually what happened. Yet Klein's function -- like those of most of his colleagues -- isn't to report what actually happened, so he'll never say that. And thus, Time has yet again completely misled its readers on a critical political issue by passing on GOP falsehoods as fact, and they are highly unlikely to do anything in the way of alerting their readers to what they did, let alone reporting the real story here: how and why that happened." - Glenn Greenwald

Good to see you make the correction, Joe. But will you run this in the print edition of Time, too? Will the four million subscribers who read the original mistake get the correction that the forty commenters here did?

You MAY have made a mistake?

Your Republican sources STILL say you're right?

Oh my God.

So Joe, If you wonder why people that care and follow politics laugh at you as an irrelevant co-opted media whore, just read the above comments.
Nice that you correct your mistakes online while millions read the hatchet job on the democrats in the magazine.
You and Broder and the rest of beltway pundits enjoy your formal dinners with the Bennetts and the Clintons, while the Josh Marshalls and Glenn Greenwalds take up the task of real journalism. Something you evidently forgot how to do.

Joe, after (if?) you read the bill will you issue a further correction of this correction?

yeah, that was pretty funny, wasn't it, kmblue.

We should all keep in mind that he survived the Primary Colors flap. There's nothing here that will be remotely as threatening within the Village.

I'm actually more than a little surprised that Joe posted the correction.

it’s difficult to tell for sure given the technical nature of the bill’s language and fierce disagreements between even moderate Republicans and Democrats on the Committee about what the bill actually does contain.

Joe, did you bother to ask these "moderate" republicans exactly which passages said that terrorists would be given the same rights as Americans?

Because Americans can only be targetted if there is "probably cause". You need real evidence to target an American citizen for a wiretap. But there is no such standard for wiretapping foreigners suspected of being terrorists...

Wow--now that I've read Greenwald, as well as Jay Ackroyd's comments above, I take back my comment about the gracious tone of Mr. Klein's update. Sure, for HIM it was gracious, and still somewhat worthy of applause (baby steps...). But as Ackroyd points out, it still has that typical Kleinian subtext of "OK, fine, say what you will, with all your 'facts' and things. But I'm still right after all."

Because, of course, that's what this is allllllll about: whether Joe Klein is right. It's just about you, Mr. Klein, and your personal authority, eh?

Greenwald manages to build more and more trust with a larger and larger group of readers partly because he has the guts and the intelligence to approach factual disputes with disinterestedness. (He also relies primarily on print sources, not on oral conversations with manipulative insiders.) But with Mr. Klein, it's always a matter of personal honor first, reportorial and rational disinterestedness second (but only if the latter doesn't do TOO much damage to one's own sense of personal honor).

I wonder, though: How does it feel when you're a self-styled reporter getting called out as either a propagandist or a sloppy journalist by a lot of people who actually know what they're talking about?

Is it still so psychologically easy to dismiss them all as uncredentialed rabble...?

The pattern occurs again and again. Joes writes something stupid; the commenters on this blog, and others, overwhelmingly reject his nonsense; and Time Magazine pays him do the same thing again.

Knock, knock, Time editors, helloooo! Are you reading this? Joe Klein's readers here declare him to be an incompetent weasel. If you must have an op-ed weasel, can't you at least hire one who isn't lazy?

what is the point of having you around doing this? you don't have even a rudimentary grasp of topics you write about. why don't you try something more suited to your "abilities." you could be one of those people in the orange vests who stand around at the metro.

the cynicism and partisan mistrust cultivated by the Bush Administration.

Big talk, coming from a Republican propaganda mouthpiece.

Good Lord... Greenwald has pulled down your pants and given you a spanking. I realize it will not dissuade you from spewing more lies and erroneous information, but how did it feel? You can take your bi-partisan commity and shove it. You long for the cocktail weenies of the good old days Joe and if we can replace enough republicans and their democratic co-conspirators, those days are gone forever.

Time to start a petition to ask for the firing of Joe Klein and for Time to replace him with a progressive writer who understands progressive issues.

One thing I don't get is why the commentators here are always so eager to pile on Klein (who certainly has it coming as a rule), while being willing to cut Tumulty, who is just as dishonest, even more weak, flaccid, and passively-aggressive nasty, but who hasn't shown even the bits of contriteness Klein has. Klein is also willing to use his own voice to tell his lies, while Tumulty has resorted to the truly spineless device of linking to other peoples' lies.

People will attack her, but always, it seems, with the attitude that she just doesn't understand, and when she's shown the light, she'll come around. Of course, she never does. I really do not get it. Gender bias? People falling for her "Everyone's den mother" act (which should have worn thin a long time ago)? What is it? Because she is, by my view, by far and away the worst poster here, and the one with the least likelihood of improving.

You would have been better off writing nothing than this utterly cowardly response. You are a wretched human being who refuses to admit what a hack you are when definitively called out on it. There is no gray area. At best your a complete hack, at worst you are a full time propagandist for the state. A full correction was required here not your self serving joke of a response.

"I may have made a mistake" is the same as "I am not the author of Primary Colors"

In both cases they are provably 100% false and you know it. That makes you Dick Cheney's new bitch. Tim Russert had it sewn up tight till this cowardly self serving nonsense was written.

Your a joke and Time needs to fire your worthless right wing whore of an ass.

jayackroyd, I can only conclude that Joe really values those Georgetown cocktail parties (after all, the holiday season has begun!) or his denial has found depths previously not known to all of mankind.

Joe,

No "may have" about it. Here is the exact language of the bill. It is completely unambiguous:

Sec. 105A. (a) Foreign to Foreign Communications-

(1) IN GENERAL - Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a court order is not required for electronic surveillance directed at the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not known to be United States persons and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.

If you had spent 2 minutes reading the bill rather than getting talking points from Republican staffers, you would not have made this mistake. This is totally irresponsible -- as a columnist in a major newsmagazine, you help shape the debate about the most fundamental, important issues, including preservation of our constitutional rights against an administration that obviously has little regard for them.

Shame on you -- at the least, you should issue a true correction, not a mealy-mouthed "I may have made a mistake but it's so complicated who could know" evasion. It's your job to know.

FDL
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/11/25/things-i-know-today-that-i-didnt-know-yesterday/

and Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/25/115827/22

are piling on our "this correction is BS" bandwagon! :-)

What a Joke! Mr. Klein is blissfully unaware that he has been caught with his pants down becuase the '4 million' print readers won't know that it has proven yet again that he is a GOP stenographer!

Sunday afternoon mea culpas may have worked in the days of print journalism, old boy.

Any chance we can bring Hugh Sidey back. At least he always admitted that he was a Republican flack.

"...although it’s difficult to tell for sure given the technical nature of the bill’s language ..."

So you admit you don't have what it takes to understand the subject - and that lead you and your editors to decide it would be fun for you to write about it anyway using phrases to describe something you admit you don't understand like ""well beyond stupid".

Do you have some sort of phobia about seeing who you are?

I agree with above, give the keys to your office to Greenwald on the way out. If Time really gave a dern about the truth they would be begging Greenwald to do a series on this very important subject but they would rather Joe ask the Republicans what he should write. Joe, at least many democrats realize the republicans are a cult out to protect their own before the nation. These are people who mock oversight. These are people who out CIA operatives and laugh about it. They are what a former president called the "most insidious of traitors" but you ask them what the world is about - and you wonder why you deceive your readers?

For shame
For shame
For shame
For shame

At least you seem to understand that it is the republicans who are blocking and preventing bipartisan and democratic ideas from success.

Maybe there is some hope for you.

Maybe.

But I doubt it.

Time would be better served hiring some of the diarists at the Kos who have a much better understanding of geopolitics than any of the so called writers in Swampland. Or maybe you should hire p_lukasiak as a blogger that way we could get some real honest reporting and commentary.

Joe, if you cared to do some real reporting, you'd be interested in WHY the government is so very interested in affording the telecoms amnesty. No one believes that the telecoms will be unable to afford the cost of litigation. No one. Time Magazine would drool for the legal teams the telecoms have on retainer. Facing litigation is something for which big corporations routinely budget. No; standing a day in court is not going to be a financial burden for the telecoms. Should the telecoms lose... that might cost them a pretty penny. I submit that BushCo and cronies aren't even worried about that. I submit BushCo has something of its own that it wants buried. There's the story, Joe. That's what you ought to be opining about.

In this blog you state

"I may have made a mistake in my column this week about the FISA legislation passed by the House, although it’s difficult to tell for sure given the technical nature of the bill’s language and fierce disagreements between even moderate Republicans and Democrats on the Committee about what the bill actually does contain."

If you actually read the bill that you are reporting on, you are either a liar or stupid. In either case you are not a reporter but the "Village" stooge

Yes to what bystander said. It is the civic responsibility of the press to discover and expose the lies of the Bush Administration. Everyone knows they are hiding something. We just don't know what and you as the press have the responsibility to find what they hide so we have at least one more shot at an impeachment and the disgrace end of a disgrace President and to teach the GOP a lession it won't forget!

Joe is the stooge, Bush is the village idiot!

Joe: "I may have made a mistake..."

from Greenwald

What I want to do is examine Klein's conduct here to illustrate how so many Beltway reporters (though not all) function. This is not a matter of some obscure error involving details. Because of what Klein did, Time Magazine told its 4 million readers that the bill passed by the House Democrats "would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans" and thus shows how Democrats still can't be trusted on national security. The whole column was built on complete, transparent falsehoods about the key provisions of that bill.

4 MILLION DECEIVED

The whole column was built on complete, transparent falsehoods about the key provisions of that bill.

The whole column was built on complete, transparent falsehoods about the key provisions of that bill.

The whole column was built on complete, transparent falsehoods about the key provisions of that bill.

You get that Joe? Let me repeat:

The whole column was built on complete, transparent falsehoods about the key provisions of that bill.

We are only talking about the Constitution, Joe.

Yes, but Joke Line will be sipping chianti with Sally Quinn and discussing serious matters over breakfast at the Hay Adams with David Broder while Glenn Greenwald won't get an invite to the Christmas tree lighting.

Granted all of jayackroyd's points, granted the gross inadequacy of a retraction until such time as it is linked to from the original erroneous post, and above all repeated in the dead tree edition.

Still, on the assumption that, having gone this far, Mr. Klein will see to those details, let me direct attention to the most gracious passage of this post. After recounting the "He said, she said" stuff, we get:

I have to side with the Democrats. I reported as fact a provision of the bill that seems to be disputable, to say the least. Clearly, I didn’t do sufficient vetting of the facts.

That transcends the "He said, she said" paradigm, for which Joe deserves one attaboy. Even though he throws in qualifiers like "seems" and "disputable", those qualifiers are themselves qualified by "to say the least". Obviously it's painful - it would be for anyone - but he does come pretty squarely down on the side of the objective truth in these two sentences, and he does take personal responsibility for his error.

Apparently it would be too embarrassing to explicitly acknowledge his error in speaking only to Republican staffers about the contents of the bill. One can hope that, bit by bit, he is learning these little essentials of his craft. One sign of that learning would be his filling in the missing steps of a formal retraction, in original post and dead tree.

Plainly, it is too embarrassing to explicitly acknowledge that he reported on the bill without reading it. Commenters here are too hasty in asserting that he still hasn't. I conjecture he has gone back now, tried to read the bill, found it too confusing, couldn't make head or tail of the basket warrant language, but determined that Glenn and Swampland commenters were at least quoting it accurately. He hasn't been fed, or been able to locate, language elsewhere in it which negates the "notwithstanding any other provision" clause that guarantees warrantless wiretapping rights between non-US persons abroad. But, the language being over his head, even after quickly cramming his homework, he's not dead certain there isn't some catch somewhere.

This latter, unfortunately, may be a lesson from which he can't profit. First, because like mathphobic Barbie, when you pull the string on the Joe Klein doll, he says, "Bill reading is hard." So he won't start actually reading the bills about which he writes. And second, because even though in the future he will know he doesn't know what he's talking about, the habits of a lifetime will keep him writing in an Olympian tone that assumes, however little he knows about any given topic, he still knows more than any of his readers on "the left", and still knows less than the Republican operatives, access to whose superior knowledge forms the basis for his own unassailability.

lol! OK Bridgeport, that was the best comment yet. After GG's spanking of jokeline I was tempted to type something to the effect of "there there, it will be OK" but couldn't because I know jokeline will keep repeating his mistakes. He should write for The Onion.

One other interesting point is that Joe didn't write his sort-of apology until he spoke to the Democrats. Presumably, somebody on the D side made a potent enough case that Joe decided he had no choice but to choke down a heapin' helpin' of Crow Pie, because it's pretty obvious the words, correct or incorrect, of a few bloggers don't carry much weight with him. This makes me wonder how many other times this sort of thing happened, except the Dems lacklusterly failed to make much of a case. Certainly, Joe, and his colleagues, have been demonstrably wrong on many, many other occasions, but this is the only time I can think of when someone came out and more or less fessed up. The whole thing symbolizes far deeper problems than one, in-over-his-head, lazy columnist getting caught fouling up.

Joe, your attempts to damage our DNC are not appreciated. Do the honorable thing and resign and quit writing anything political unless you preface it with a disclaimer that clearly notes your obvious neocon republican bias.

P_L: "it should be kept in mind that Joe is not a reporter, but a columnist --- and the kind of rigorous fact-checking that goes into real journalism doesn't go into columns."

True enough, however the editors are ultimately responsible for what appears in print. Period. It's their job to ensure their columnists are not abusing the editorial "freedom" of opinion/analysis writing by using false "facts" and/or deliberately misleading readers.

More and more it appears reporters and journalists operate in an accoutability-free zone. Endless amounts of bytes and bandwidth have been expended on the ceaseless, ongoing bastardization of journalism by the likes of Seelye, Allen, Simon, Pickler, Matthews, Klein (and on and on), yet very little has been expended on the editors who allow this to continue without any evidence of discipline or concern. (And no, the Little Debbie ombudsmen handwringers are not a substitute for actual discipline of journalistic malpractice by editors.)

Perhaps it's time for Somerby, Media Matters, TPM Horsesmouth, Digby, Atrios etc. -- people with substantial megaphones who write on these topics -- to start calling out the editors, by name, who by all appearances are failing their jobs.

Again, by their standards it's the editors that separate "professional" journalism from the Internet rabble, yet there is virtualy no transparancy in process or public evidence of editorial discipline. All we see is that the wankers keep wanking. If they're allowed to wank with impunity why do we continue to focus blame on them? Let's focus on those who allow and enable the wanking.

Klein is one utterly crummy commentator. Just beyond belief.

The only ways I can imagine that Joe Klein has kept his gigs in corporate-owned media are:

1) Joe Klein kisses a lot of corporate owner rear ends.

2) Corporate owners like the way Joe Klein kisses their rear ends.

Metaphorically speaking, that is. But does it make a difference how it's done?

True enough, however the editors are ultimately responsible for what appears in print. Period. It's their job to ensure their columnists are not abusing the editorial "freedom" of opinion/analysis writing by using false "facts" and/or deliberately misleading readers.

I have the feeling that Joe will be held to account for this... its not merely sloppy, but sloppiness based on a partisan interpretation of the bill. Lots of columnists fit the facts to support their conclusions (and indeed, a good columnist is someone who provides you with the key relevant facts from which a valid conclusion can be drawn.) But very few columnists for established "centrist" media create their own "facts" out of whole cloth because they don't actually understand the topic they are opining about.

More and more it appears reporters and journalists operate in an accoutability-free zone.

actually, journalism was an accountability-free zone before the internet showed up. The web makes it possible to hold bad journalists to account -- and reporting standards will eventually improve as writers and editors adapt to the new accountability standard created by an informed audience that has the tools to hold publications up to ridicule for really sloppy work.

Joe Kline writes:

“I was clearly wrong to state as fact something that might not actually be in the bill BUT, we are talking about relatively obscure and unimportant technical details and my larger point—that a bipartisan, veto-proof House FISA was possible, but was opposed by the Democratic leadership—is still true.”

Many might call this a weasel answer. Joe Kline writes a column called “Tone Deaf Democrats” and the entire column is about being tone deaf on national security. He brings up three elements of this Tone Deafness. First is a statement by one Democrat in the debate, something that EVERY OTHER Democratic candidate disagreed with. The second element was troop withdrawal in Iraq, something Joe Kline thinks SHOULD happen. He writes: “Senator Carl Levin's proposal for a gradual troop withdrawal, starting now, is the right policy”

So what is the smoking gun of tone deafness? His (RNC supplied) confused “analysis” of the RESTORE Act, the current FISA legislative proposal.

Let’s review Kline’s pseudo-analysis of FISA in his initial column.

“Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that — Limbaugh is salivating — would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid.”

Kline now fesses up that he was wrong on this oh-so-complicated bill, perhaps after all, it doesn‘t require stupid FISA approval of terrorists calls. So what happened here? Well Joe tells us that this is a complicated bill. Well what’s