Today in Iowa

As it is, he just sounds desperate, contentious and unreasonable.

Edwards is also wildly irresponsible on trade. He's now saying that trade deals have cost "millions of jobs.

Ironically, if it were anyone OTHER than JK writing these words, I might have reason to believe them. But the JK track record of what can be considered "responsible" suggests to me that Edwards is probably being perfectly reasonable.

Amazing how someone with zero credibilty can still add value. If JK said it its probably wrong. So reliable you can set your watch to it.

There is a strong argument to be made that the natural balance of the American economy has tilted toward the wealthy and the power of entrenched special interests, and needs to be tilted back in the direction of the middle class and poor.

It badly needs to be tilted back to citizens in general. I just finished Robert Reich's book Supercapitalism which made that argument pretty effectively.

I don't know how Edwards is doing on the stump now, but from what I've heard in previous speeches, he's making sense, based on the state of things described in Reich's book...

Joe:

Your thoughts on who is or is not "responsible" are so very important and so sublimely well-written. I love how you focus on how the candidates "sound" to you. It really makes me think seriously about the candidates after reading your various impressions of the rhetorical tone of their speeches.

From your stylistic choices, I can really tell that you've really been there; you've really been an impartial yet thorough witness to the process, precise in your observations, Columbo-esque in your follow-through. I know this because it's obvious that you've made every attempt to be as judicious in your word selection as you possibly can. When you write "ridiculous", I too wrinkle my nose and make a snorting sound as I scoff along with you. "How Ridiculous!" I exclaim mentally, before furrowing my brow back into serious composition to contemplate your next characterization of someone's argument. Lest we readers mistake you for a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, you lighten your prose with the casually (yet perfectly) placed popular culture reference--"jumped the shark", for example--just to remind us that you're "with it" and current in your thinking, even taking into account your decades of experience prowling the halls of influence for scoops.

I find myself involuntarily nodding gravely along or noting to myself "Joe's so relevant" while I'm reading such incisive observations. You've managed to wrap the very latest political goings-on in established truths that transcend partisanship or ideology. I feel comfortable knowing that you're there to give us "your take" on things, because there's such a solid foundation of knowledge about what makes people tick, and what's truly important in the world. Trivial facts and details just melt away, leaving us with the story that really matters. The surgeon's skill in separating the wheat of current events (in any sphere of knowledge) from the chaff of cluttered factoids, partisan agendas and ideological war-cries is the real key to our forming eminently reasonable opinions like your own. You always help us focus on the larger point.

In future columns (after doing the fair thing and mentioning obviously necessary disclaimers with respect to the accuracy of anything you've written so far) please tell us much, much more about what you "suspect" about the "American majority"--especially the recently former Bush Republicans (so many people in the know find that their opinions are really the key to understanding Americans).

You're so worth reading!
Thanks a bunch!

Before I cross John Edwards off my short list, does anyone know if a corporation butters Joe Klein's bread?

Well, the serious people are beginning to dismiss Edwards on cue, Joe Klein, George Will...David Broder is even shoveling the coal on the Bipartisan Freedom Train. The prospect of challenging the status quo sends our incumbent pundits into a panic. I wonder why.

Before I cross John Edwards off my short list, does anyone know if a corporation butters Joe Klein's bread?

Nah... Messrs Time and Warner are two kindly old gents right out of Dickens, who spend much of their time and fortunes in charitable endeavor and even sometimes use their small but still profitable firm to employ those who would otherwise founder in the fetid gutters of Gin Alley. Hence their employment of Joe "Micawber" Klein.

God bless us, every one!

"But it sounds like he wants to go to war with the corporations instead of the terrorists. I work for a corporation. It's how I get my health care."

Chutzpah Joe Klein works for a corporation. It's how he gets his health care. Chutzpah Joe doesn't like this Edwards guy who says that the corporations and their fat CEO's have run wild. Chutzpah Joe isn't just some lying corporation flack. This is his considered, honest position. He thinks the corporations deserve a fair shake. It's not like they have brought war, income inequality, and strongman rule to our country after all. Just give them a chance to do better. Trust Chutzpah Joe, and everything will be fine for Joe.

Ah, the "I spoke to several people who..." happened to be thinking whatever the journalist wants to say. In logic, there is the appeal to authority fallacy and the appeal to popularity fallacy; their journalistic counterpart would be the "appeal to several people" fallacy, except there are no standards in journalism.

I spoke to several people who said they used to like Joe Klein, but now they think he comes across as self-centered and supremely smug, and he isn't doing himself any favors with his egotistical inability to admit errors. They also found he tends to write the same things over and over, and they can generally predict exactly what he'll say by reading the stuff of a few other Beltway insiders. They think there's still hope for him, of course, but he has to do exactly what they want him to if he's to have a really good chance at redeeming himself. That's just what they say, anyway.

I hear AWWMNUUBM doesn't like Edwards.

I hear AWWMNUUBM doesn't like Edwards.
Posted by J.J.

Yup. If they don't get the Romney or McCain vs Clinton or Obama they want, I imagine the cheerleading for Bloomberg will get that much louder.

If it starts to look like Huckabee vs Edwards, Bloomberg will get in. My two bit opinion.

As a bloodless political matter, I do think Edwards should start saying more about foreign policy. His take on the Pakistani situation, which HRC almost immediately copied, was a good start.

Lemme guess Klein's brilliant interviewing, "reporting," and ethnographic technique on this one:

Klein: So, voter, don't you think Edwards sounds angry, pugnacious, desperate, and irresponsible?

Voter: Uh, I didn't really noti--, uhh, well, yeah, I guess he sort of might sound that way to some people.

Klein [doing a celebratory moonwalk]: Called it! Score!!! Suhhh-WEET! I am the God of Reporting!

This post is a classic example of how pundits manipulate the expectations game to suit their overall purposes. The trick is to lower expectations for the candidate you want to push and gush about how they were exceeded, and raise expectations unreasonably for those you want to take down a noth by pointing out how they did not meet them. That way you can turn somebody who is underperforming into the winner with simple rhetoric.

In this case, he sets Hillary doing compentantly against the expectation of her slipping. With Obama, he calls it "mailing it in" when Obama fails to be "transcendant."

If you look at a lot of punditry, this expectations game twisting is extremely common.

It's also fundamentally at its core, very dishonest intellectually.

Fortunately, the good voters of Iowa are influenced little at this late stage by the streams of consiousness of those in the national punditocacy.

I must agree with RKA's assessment.

Indeed, RKA, that was pretty damn insightfull.

I actually think Edwards is going to win Iowa, although I wouldn't bet my life savings on it. I think that most of the Kucinich/Dodd/Richardson voters will flip to him when their first choice doesn't get 15%.

Joe--this Guardian reporter seemed to find that people are resonating with Edwards' message:

Voters, or at least those who show up to his events, seem to buy it. "They say he's a pretty boy and he can't get cut, and he's telling us he can," said Jon Schoonover. "He's in there for all 15 rounds." Marla Judge, a Des Moines nurse, said, "He's got a lot of fight. He really will stand up for what we really need."

Edwards' message is an appeal to rural working class and lower-middle class Iowans who feel they've been left behind by America's 21st century economy.

...I also wanted to add that anyone who is afraid that the government is going to go crazy and start being mean to big pharma any time in the next jillion years, is, well, perhaps just a weensy bit naive.

Sometimes I strongly suspect, perhaps I even feel, that Joe Klein is nowhere near Des Moines, and would never do anything so dangerous as actually breathing the same air as people at a campaign event. Is Joe Klein perhaps a disembodied brain, floating in a vat somewhere? Do electronic sheep dream of androids? But I have neither the time nor background to evaluate such things - I just have feelings.....

I wonder what Joe Klein will say when Edwards wins Iowa pretty handily. What excuses will he make?

"Religious extremists." I think we're getting very close to painting all religious people the same color. Is someone who uses the Bible to justify their position on, say, abortion an extremist? How about someone who uses their own morals instead of a published creed?

@Intrepyd

I imagine that would depend on what their views were, what part of the Bible they cited, and how open they were to reasoned discussion. Similarly, I would be intrigued to know what there is to object to in the morals of your hypothetical (secular?) second person.

I compared her to a bran muffin last summer.

There is just nothing so stupid that you won't put it into print (twice). Cheers, you stupid old bastard.

I thought I stopped the first longer post because, looking on it, it was just too mean-spirited. Ah, well. Apologies.

Coupla thoughts, off the top

This is the totally the funniest LiveJournal evar.

(where did you learn about NAFTA, anyway--Hoekstra's office?)

apparently.

The year that NAFTA passed, we had a 1.3 billion trade surplus with Mexico. By 2002, that had become a 37 billion dollar trade deficit. And in the same period, the trade deficit with Canada rose from about 10 billion to 48 billion.

On the specific issue of jobs, just one "NAFTA related" jobs training program that focussed on the manufacturing sector found that by 2003, 525,000 manufacturing jobs had been lost specifically due to the impact of NAFTA itself. (During the same period, 3 million manufacturing had been lost all told, thanks mostly to the impact of 'free trade' agreements in general.)

http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA_10_jobs.pdf

(advocates of NAFTA were projecting trade surpluses, and claiming 13,000 new jobs for every $1,000,000,000 in trade surplus -- using that formula, the ballooning trade deficits in the first tem years of NAFTA resulted in the loss of slightly over 1 million jobs.)

Just as Joe really had no clue about the contents of the FISA legislation yet was willing to make unequivocal and moronic statements about it, so too Joe's understanding of the impact of NAFTA is apparently based on something told to him by some right-wing ideologue. It may not have been Hoekstra -- just someone of Hoekstra's ilk.

ROFL.

One thing you gotta give Joe is that he's a real vein of snark material. Great comments.

Another thing you gotta give Joe is he is the purest instantiation of the Village narrative. It's all there in this piece. The Clinton comeback. Obama fading at the wire. And the DFH Edwards over on the side, clamoring tastelessly (and fruitlessly) for attention.

On Don Imus' time slot at CB

ROFL.

One thing you gotta give Joe is that he's a real vein of snark material. Great comments.

Another thing you gotta give Joe is he is the purest instantiation of the Village narrative. It's all there in this piece. The Clinton comeback. Obama fading at the wire. And the DFH Edwards over on the side, clamoring tastelessly (and fruitlessly) for attention.

On Don Imus' time slot at CBS' WFAN, right before Thanksgiving. Boomer Esiason, sitting in Don's seat, said that CBS hadn't come up with the usual holiday set decorations on his NFL pregame show. Tight budgets and all. I figure TW could save some money by leaving Joe at home to write this stuff. Hell, they could have given him the week off; he could have written this piece in advance.

Davd Sirota has a different take. He's not afraid to say the word. Populism.

The media's version of the Iowa presidential caucuses is a story of five candidates and two rivalries. On the Democratic side, it is Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., against Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and on the Republican side it is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson. But the numbers suggest the most compelling story is about two underdog candidates and one demographic: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), former Sen. John Edwards (D) and the middle class.

Huckabee gained 11 points in the latest University of Iowa survey, pulling himself into a statistical tie for second place with Giuliani, despite Giuliani's national fame and huge fundraising totals. Similarly, Edwards remains within striking distance of first place in Iowa despite his rivals spending 300 times what he's spent on television ads as of the end of September (Edwards launched his first ad last week).

What explains the unlikely rise of these two dark horses?

It's the populism, stupid.

Huckabee and Edwards are the only two major candidates staking their campaigns on an indictment of economic inequality, corporate power and corruption. As the latest Democracy Corps poll shows, these are the very societal ills angering a middle class whose real-life struggles with stagnant wages, layoffs, debt, foreclosures and health care costs chafe against a pop culture and political system that glorify fabulous affluence. The country, in short, seems ready to embrace Huey Long's "Share Our Wealth" ethos, and these two southerners are resurrecting the best of the famed Louisiana governor's legacy.

Just look at the stump speeches.

"The most important thing a president needs to do is to make it clear that we're not going to continue to see jobs shipped overseas, jobs that are lost by American workers, many in their 50s who, for 20 and 30 years, have worked to make a company rich and then watch as a CEO takes a $100 million bonus to jettison those American jobs somewhere else," Huckabee said at a recent Republican debate. "That's criminal — it's wrong."

Edwards presents arguably the boldest challenge to the political Establishment of any major presidential candidate in contemporary history. Proposing sweeping health care, tax, trade and labor law reform, he says the only way "people who are powerful in Washington" are "going to give away their power is if we take it away from them." The system, he says, is "controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water."

EJ Dionne isn't afraid to note it either:

You can see why the affable Huckabee has turned himself into the moment's most interesting political phenomenon. "I'm not exactly the pick of some of the East Coast establishment Republicans," the former governor of Arkansas said in a nice bit of heartland understatement. "I think they don't understand a lot of us who don't live in their world."

"If you ask a hedge fund manager what's he worried about, he's going to give you a very different answer than a guy who just lost his job in a factory in Orange City," Huckabee continues in a quiet voice, referring to a town in the western part of the state. And then he speaks up for "the guy in Orange City" who is alarmed by the price of gasoline, the rising costs of college and health care, the inexorable increases in "deductibles" and "co-pays."

As for that hedge fund manager, Huckabee says "the price of gasoline doesn't really affect his getting to work. It's not going to change where he has a vacation this summer. It's not going to change what brand of clothes he wears or where he lives or what he has for dinner."

Joe--did you see the thing about the deductibles and the copays there? Did you hear about the law they just passed in CA? Seems that insurance companies were reviewing applications of people who had suffered grievous illnesses and made large claims, and then retroactively denied their applications. CA said that if they take their premiums, they don't get to change their minds about that when the so-called "insured" get sick.

Do you really think people don't notice the car ads during football games at Christmas time, where you're expected to surprise your spouse with a new Lexus?

Do you really think people haven't noticed that they're not living any better now than they were when the ball dropped on the new millenium? And they sure as hell aren't buying any surprise Lexuses.

That they are in fact working more hours for less takehome pay and worse benefits, but can't quit because they have to have health insurance?

Do you really think they are unaware that there are people like, well, you, Joe who are eating way up there on the tender parts of the hog, while they're expected to gnaw on trotters and like it?

Do you really think you can keep people from hearing what Edwards and Huckabee are saying, indefinitely?

I know. You've got a story, and you're sticking to it. And we've already had the foreshadowing of the story. Even if Edwards wins the most Iowa delegates, he won't really have "won." Because he is not Serious. He is not, (it was really funny to hear you quoting Peggy Noonan here--you really are all in one big bed together, aren't you?) Reasonable.

I compared her to a bran muffin last summer.

And I compare you, Joe, to the end result.

(I'll use that jayackroyd quote of the Dionne column and then some.) I take EJ Dionne is in a different part of Iowa:

In the state that will kick off the presidential election this week, it's not a good time to be part of the moneyed elite -- even in the Republican Party.
[snip]
"If you ask a hedge fund manager what's he worried about, he's going to give you a very different answer than a guy who just lost his job in a factory in Orange City," Huckabee continues in a quiet voice, referring to a town in the western part of the state. And then he speaks up for "the guy in Orange City" who is alarmed by the price of gasoline, the rising costs of college and health care, the inexorable increases in "deductibles" and "co-pays."
[snip]
Democrat John Edwards gave a raucous crowd in Des Moines a rousing anti-corporate oration a few decibel levels above his already fire-breathing stump speech. He attacked "corporate greed," "the glorification of corporate profit," "the banks and the insurance companies," Exxon Mobil and Halliburton, the people who "have a stranglehold on the American economy."

"The richest Americans are getting richer," Edwards said. "How much money do these people need?" Roaring his refrain of "enough is enough," Edwards declared: "America doesn't belong to them. It belongs to us."

Us-vs.-them economic rhetoric is often said to be out of date, impractical, even dangerous. But in the closing days of a very tight race, Edwards has his opponents, particularly Barack Obama, scrambling to make sure a trial lawyer from North Carolina does not corner the market on populism.

Obama is vying with Edwards for the non-Clinton vote, and the Illinois senator was on the air yesterday with an Edwards-like television ad assailing the flow of American jobs abroad. Obama spoke last week of "Maytag workers who labored all their lives only to see their jobs shipped overseas; who now compete with their teenagers for $7-an-hour jobs at Wal-Mart." He had heard from seniors "who were betrayed by CEOs who dumped their pensions while pocketing bonuses, and from those who still can't afford their prescriptions because Congress refused to negotiate with the drug companies for the cheapest available price."

Even Hillary Clinton, whose discourse is typically longer on policy details than egalitarian wrath, told an appreciative crowd in Story City last week that the "interests of working middle-class families" had been "subordinated to the interests of the wealthy and well-connected" and that the Bush administration acted on the mortgage crisis "only after Wall Street began to feel the credit crunch." She promised to "end the student loan industry's scams, which have ripped off families" and condemned "no-bid contracts," "cronyism" and "corruption."

Since the Reagan era, the heroes of the nation's economic story have been valiant entrepreneurs who "took risks" and "created wealth." This narrative advanced the Republican cause and seeped deeply into the Democratic Party. If Iowa is any indication, there is a new narrative in which the old heroes are cast as the goats of the story and the new heroes are people like "the guy in Orange City." There is a thunder out of Iowa, and it is shaking both parties.

Joe Klein writes:

I do think that when you take Edwards' latest pitch outside the hothouse of the Democratic party base, it's not going to have very much appeal.

According to a mid-December RealClearPoltics averaging of head-to-head polls showed yielded these results: Clinton came out ahead of Guiliani (+1.8%) and Romney (+4.8%). However she trailed McCain (-5.0%). Obama came out ahead of both Guiliani (+5.7%) and Romney (+11.8%). He tied McCain. Edwards came out ahead of all three Republicans; Guiliani (+2.7%), Romney (+16.5%), and McCain (+3.7%).

We know how Swamplander insiders don't pay any attention to polls, not much anyway, not much anyway if they're inconvenient. Klein ignores the polls and summons up some of that legendary insight of his to assess Edwards' prospects. It's obvious that the public was swept up in all that fun news about Edwards haircuts, his sprawling home, and that Two Americas blather. But now Klein and others in the know are getting ready to share with the general public the fact that Edwards is an angry man, indifferent to the plight of the rich in this country.

Joe Klein writes:

Edwards says, "I will never--never!--sit down at a table with them," which is just ridiculous. If he wants to pass universal health insurance, he's going to have to build a coalition that includes or neutralizes much of the business community--if not the insurance and pharmaceutical industries--or it won't pass.

Klein's point is that corporations are persons too according to the Supreme Court. Couple that with his belief that America is supposed to be a democratic republic in name only and Klein is at the ready to do his patriotic duty whenever an aspirant to the presidency shows an inclination to side with millions of voting citizens against the interests of dozens of corporations.

Hey Ana. Can you get the tech people to fix the blockquote tag behavior? CMike has written a good post, but it's hard to know who is saying what. And the font size flim flam makes it hard to read.

You know, I was worried about John Edwards’ chances until Joe Klein said that Edwards had jumped the shark. Now I know, in my heart of hearts, that Edwards will win Iowa and win it big.

Seriously, have you ever read anyone who has worse political instincts than Joe Klein? In the stock market, we’d call him a contrary indicator.

I’m glad Joe checks his “gut” rather than relying on polls. See, since the writers’ strike has knocked Stephen Colbert off the air, I’m jonesing for a political satirist who gets a big laugh out of trusting his gut, not those stupid facts.

Oh wait … you say Joe isn’t being satirical? He really means it? Oh dear …

By the way, here’s the latest Iowa poll from McClatchy/MSNBC (conducted by Mason-Dixon). It has Edwards (24%), Clinton (23%) and Obama (22%).

And if you want to read some interesting on-the-ground reporting, here’s a report from an Edwards volunteer in New Hampshire. In this installment, she gets to meet Kucinich even though she’s volunteering for Edwards. It doesn’t fit into the neat little narrative that Joe Klein and the other members of The Village are spinning, but the real world rarely does.

Obama is vying with Edwards for the non-Clinton vote, and the Illinois senator was on the air yesterday with an Edwards-like television ad assailing the flow of American jobs abroad....Even Hillary Clinton, whose discourse is typically longer on policy details than egalitarian wrath, told an appreciative crowd in Story City last week that the "interests of working middle-class families" had been "subordinated to the interests of the wealthy and well-connected"...

I thought I'd noticed this trend, but wasn't sure. Its clear that Edwards message is resonating with Iowans (and if it was given any coverage, with the rest of America) and that Obama and Hillary have both adjusted their campaign rhetoric to steal Edward's thunder.

If we had real political reporters, this would be a huge story --- how Obama is now suddenly becoming "Edwards lite", and abandoning his "politics of hope" for the "politics of confrontation with monied interests" in response to Edwards -- and how even Hillary is adjusting her message in response to Obama's adopting Edward's rhetoric.

But because Edwards is not taken "seriously", he is denied that kind of coverage.... and the chance to claim the mantle of the "real populist". Instead, he gets the "Klein treatment" -- too 'unreasonable', too 'angry'.

Edward's 'no seat at the table' message is simple -- he is not going to sacrifice the welfare of the American people to accomodate corporate greed; that maintaining the maximal profit margins and executive bonuses of big business will not be a consideration in his administration. To Joe, that's "unreasonable" -- to the vast majority of Americans, concern about whether health care policy will lower the stock prices of multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates is simply not a priority.

There's allot of cross talk on 'unity' vs 'fighting' out there. People claim that Obama with his talk of reconciliation and big tables is the 'uniter', while John Edwards with his populist stances against corporate special interests is just a 'fighter.' But that confuses a couple of different concepts, so let's be clear. It all depends on who one want to unite.

John Edwards is talking about uniting the American people behind his attempt to take on the entrenched corporate interests in an 'America Rising' for working people. Having the American people largely united on issues is a good thing. Having the interests and players in Washington, or stakeholders, as they say, united together is usually a bad thing.

In Edwards's closing speech Edwards makes it clear halfway through that he intends to unite ordinary Americans outside the beltway based on these bread and butter economic interests and the resting of power away from the Beltway set:

I want to be absolutely clear that the corporate greed that is destroying the middle class of this country and stealing your children’s future, it is stealing the future of Democrats’ children, Independents’ children, Republicans’ children. I'm telling you, this is a message and a cause we can unite America around.

i was struck by those nafta numbers. could that actually be right? well, luckily david sarota was on the case...

"According to government data, NAFTA has cost America at least 1 million jobs. This is not new information - but it still never ceases to amaze me that a high-paid journalist at any publication is allowed to simply lie without as much as a nod to the actual facts. But then, I guess Joe has neither the time nor the journalistic background to figure out who's right: the desperate bourgeois-pleasing Clintonites whispering in his ear, or the actual hard data that comprise those pesky things called facts."

Mr. Klein, I am one the voters who supports Edwards specifically because he is willing to take on the corporations on our behalf. Pundits like you, and the dozen or so other "experts" on American voters are clearly clueless about what our interests are and what drives our political choices. Do you know that my mother was recently quoted for private health insurance coverage and the CHEAPEST quote was $2,226.97 a month. That was the cheapest. That's corporate greed pure and simple. Corporations profits keep rising, but workers wages and benefits are either stagnant or declining and ceo pay keeps rising. That's why I support Edwards. It is a battle Mr. Klein and it seems Edwards is the only one who truly gives cares about the average American.

It's simple, really, Joe.

Treat the citizens like peasants and -- sooner or later -- you'll have a revolution. Against this background, your centrist BS sounds like nothing so much as "Let them eat cake!"

You know, if I had written something this stupid ...

"I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right"

I might check my facts before I wrote anything else for the year.

Too bad for Joe K that David Sirota is fact-checking him today.

As Sirota writes:

According to government data, NAFTA has cost America at least 1 million jobs. This is not new information - nor is it even much debated among economists on either side of the trade debate. But because it offends the Washington Consensus in support of lobbyist-written trade policies and because the realities of trade are finally taking center stage in the presidential primaries, Klein - a loyal Establishment soldier - has taken to the ramparts to lie.

The ball is in your court, Mr. Klein, if you haven't already slunk deep into an Iowa corn field.

The ball is in your court, Mr. Klein

The ball is never in Joe's court - he never admits error when he's caught in one of his numerous mistakes.

I'd say the ball is in Time's court. How long will they tolerate this guy who has no credibility left?

God I love it when Joe enlists the support of the Iowans who agree with him that Edwards is just so damn unreasonable.

Please, Joe, cleanse us with your centrist wisdom, lest we be led astray.

But seriously, I gave $50 to Edwards a few weeks ago and Joe's insufferable bloviating makes me all the more happy with my choice.

Pete Hoekstra wants to get the word out about Edwards so he sends Joe out to interview a corporate Republican family (management would be my guess) about how they feel about Edwards. No surprise: the corporate Republican admits that he doesn't like Edwards because he already has health insurance and doesn't want the peons getting what he has.

It sort of sounds like: The Corporations Are Going To Eat Your Children. Actually what he says is, "We're not going to let corporate greed steal our children's future."

hmm JK, no matter how many times I say "We're not going to let corporate greed steal our children's future", it just doesn't come out sounding like "The Corporations Are Going To Eat Your Children".

Is there some jailhouse invisible piss ink encryption code that's at work here?

Is it the pitch? maybe the speed in saying it- should i say it faster? maybe s l o w it down? i've tried it different ways and it still just sounds like "We're not going to let corporate greed steal our children's future"

let us know the code. otherwise, maybe it's just you.

It's easy, dachoste. Just give Pete Hoekstra's office a call and ask them to run it through their "red-shift" filter for you. That's what Joe does with every piece of new information he receives, and you can see how well-informed he is about everything. Especially FISA.

TIME is officially a TABLOID now

1) Joe Klein lied about being the primary colors author then admitted he lied about it.

2) Joe Klein lied about the FISA debate and Glenn Greenwald, the Chicago Tribune, and Wired's, Ryan Singel, all called him out for lying on that.

3) By our own government's official data, NAFTA has cost around 1,000,000 American jobs and counting (http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20061004). Joe Klein lied about that also.

Joe Klein, Richard Stengel, And Priscilla Painton are "The Unholy Triumvirate of Propagandist Lies" at Time.

Seriously, how those three look themselves in the mirror and call themselves journalists is beyond me.

They have to be the 3 stupidest people at TIME by far. BY FAR!!!

JC, in a much earlier life, I worked for the tabloids, including the National Enquirer. And I can tell you that everything published by the Enquirer had to be backed up by the reporter, put through a research department and then signed off by a lawyer. It really cuts down on the lawsuits when you do that.

Anyway, here's my point. If any TABLOID reporter had made the "mistakes" that Joe Klein made, he'd have been summarily fired.

And if any tabloid reporter had written: "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right", his editor would have flagged it, held that reporter up for mockery in the newsroom, and the other reporters would have carried him bodily from the newsroom and dumped him on the curb.

Bottom line: Joe Klein would have to go a long way UP before he got to tabloid standards.

If he was a more interesting writer, he could maybe go write for the Weekly World News (different standards -- it's for entertainment purposes only). But they stopped publishing the WWN. And like I said, you had to be a REALLY GOOD writer to work there.

Joe, not only do you NOT know what the hell you're talking about, you've admitted it yourself.

You've also admitted you don't have the time or inclination to find out.

Great job you've got here.

We got the best m4v converter to convert m4v
A good helper with your converting…..m4v to avi m4v to wmv
Ultra QuickTime m4v to mpeg Converter is a powerful tool to help you convert，from m4v to mp4 and to many other formats。

M4V Converter free download center- ALL M4V conversion tools which help you feel free to convert M4V to MP3, AVI, WMV, MPEG, FLV, 3GP, WMA. And useful Guide on How to Deal with M4V files.
m4v converter
convert m4v
Ultra Quicktime M4V converter currently is the best M4V converter which can convert Quicktime movie M4V to AVI, MPEG, MP4, MPG, WMV, ASF and Vob. As we know Quicktime movie usually has the video formats of M4V, MOV, QT, MP4, and M4V, With this M4V Converter, you can feel free to Convert them all with fast speed and high output quality.
m4v to avi
m4v to wmv
With the fast and powerful QuickTime video decoder inside, Ultra QuickTime M4V Converter supports almost all MOV, QT, MP4, M4V files, even QuickTime Player has not been installed. Integrated High-speed MPEG-2 encoder which let you convert M4V to DVD-Video files(VIDEO_TS, AUDIO_TS) and VCD/SVCD image(*.bin,*.cue), so you can burn VCD/SVCD/DVD disc easily from QuickTime files by using third-party buring tools. It is a software program for converting video formats at fast speeds and high quality. Very user-friendly interface and Quality Profiles.
m4v to mpeg
m4v to mp4

Easy Way to Cut Large Video Files into Small Clips with Video Cutter
Ultra Video Cutter is a powerful video cutting tool. The main function of Ultra Video Cutter is to cut large video files into new video files, and also to join or merge multiple video clips into a large one. The program supports so many video formats including AVI, Divx, XviD, MPEG, WMV, ASF, RM, MOV, 3GP, MP4 formats

video cutter
FLV Video Cutter
3GP Video Cutter
AVI Video Cutter
MP4 Video Cutter
DVD Video Cutter
DAT Video Cutter
Video Editor
Video Merger
Video Joiner
Video Splitter