Joe Klein

As NewsBusters has been reporting for months, the goal of the liberal media as it shamelessly campaigns for the reelection of President Obama is to paint everything opponent Mitt Romney says as racist, elitist, or both.

On this weekend's syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Time magazine's Joe Klein said that Romney referring to Obama's experience as a "community organizer is a code word for organizing poor people to rise up against, you know, march on the gated communities" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Not content with letting partisan liberal journalist Joe Klein review "radical Republican" Jonah Goldberg's new book The Tyranny of Clichés, the May 18 edition of the paper's Book Review podcast opened with book editor Sam Tanenahus talking with Klein about his hostile Times book review. Tanenhaus (pictured), author of a little screed called The Death of Conservatism that was discredited within months of its 2009 publication by the rise of the Tea Party, spent the first 14 minutes of the podcast slamming Goldberg's book along with Klein.

This exchange occurred about 40 minutes from the end of the podcast:

Surprising no one, the New York Times handed its review of Jonah Goldberg's new book, The Tyranny of Clichés, to a political enemy, Time Magazine political columnist Joe Klein (pictured), which he did under the loaded headline "Hating Liberals." The paper similarly handed its review of Goldberg's previous book, 2007's Liberal Fascism, to unsympathetic history professor David Oshinsky.

Klein was even harsher (calling the book "an insight into the...radical Republican state of mind") and more condescending in an accompanying New York Times books podcast, hosted by his equal in conservative mockery, the paper's book editor Sam Tanenhaus. (Check the next Times Watch post for that.)

60 Minutes journalist Lesley Stahl is apparently concerned about how such "out of the mainstream" Republicans ran in the 2012 presidential primaries, given what a "centrist" country America is.

Stahl moderated a New York Historical Society discussion on the state of the race. Time journalist Joe Klein appeared at the May 3 event to smear conservative groups as racist. After noting that he attended a Tea Party rally in Arkansas, Klein mocked the organization's fears at this: "And there are Mexican Americans all over the place and their grandchildren are marrying out of their race or becoming gay. The President of the United States doesn't have the good sense to be either black or white and his middle name is Hussein."

As NewsBusters reported last week, eleven out of twelve regular contributors to the syndicated Chris Matthews Show thought Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won't be able to take control and drive the political debate in the next six months leading to Election Day.

On this weekend's program, only one of the twelve regulars thought President Obama's recent flipflop on same-sex marriage hurts him politically (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You want a clear picture of just how in the tank America's media are for Barack Obama?

On Sunday, Chris Matthews revealed that eleven out of twelve regulars on the syndicated program bearing his name say Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won't take control and drive the political debate in the next six months leading to Election Day (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Yesterday, Time's Joe Klein may have produced the single dumbest analysis post ever. Absurd as it is, it's still important, because it probably betrays Barack Obama's election strategy, with which the press will gleefully cooperate. The strategy is: Make it about anything and everything besides what I and my administration have and haven't done, because it hasn't impressed anyone, and we know it.

Klein's entry (HT Hot Air Headlines) at Time's Swampland, which should be named Fever-Swampland, was so brain-dead that he failed to cite a single example of an incumbent facing reelection (vs. a successor seeking election for the first time) in attempting to make his case:

Republicans avoid her show, a self-inflated Rachel Maddow tells Entertainment Weekly, because she strives to be "unimpeachable in the facts."

Followed quickly by an impeachable offense from Maddow. (video after page break)

Time's Joe Klein on Sunday took a position that is likely to shock people on both sides of the aisle.

In a discussion about birth control on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, Klein surprisingly said, "Why, in a country where we don't require employers to provide health insurance should we require them to - those who do provide health insurance - to provide contraception? Now, I'm all in favor of contraception, but I think that this is a major overstepping of the state's role" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

National Review's Reihan Salam on Sunday proved once again that liberal media members no matter what their number are no match for one well-informed conservative.

On CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, Salam took on the host, Time magazine's Joe Klein, and the Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel on a far-ranging discussion about how both sides of the aisle view taxes, the Tea Party, and social change with the conservative ending up looking like the only knowledgeable person in the room (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews this weekend, on the syndicated program bearing his name, offered viewers a mock movie trailer attacking Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

In honor of Sunday's Oscars and the presumed favorite "The Artist," Matthews was using the occasion to cinematically show Romney's "downfall" is "when he has to open his mouth" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Time's Joe Klein said Thursday, "What the Republicans have is an awful lot of scared white people in their party."

Appearing on MSNBC's The Last Word, Klein disgustingly continued, "And one of the things they're most scared about is people of different colors and ethnicities and, you know, backgrounds polluting their white picket fence sense of America" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Time magazine on Monday published a lengthy cover-story hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney penned by the Obama-loving Joe Klein.

This caused Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to take to his Twitter account with a deliciously accurate smackdown of his own:

On Monday's Early Show, CBS's John Dickerson and Time's Joe Klein harped on Newt Gingrich's overwhelming "liabilities." Klein hinted that the former House Speaker's ego would get the better of him: "This is a guy who cannot stand prosperity....[He] cannot control his ego when he is riding high." Dickerson played up how Gingrich's "negatives were very, very high when he left Washington in the mid-'90s."

Fill-in anchor Jeff Glor asked the CBS political director, "What are the chances Newt Gingrich is the nominee?" Dickerson punted on making a prediction, but borrowed a line from colleague Jan Crawford, stating that "he has a great deal of baggage." When co-anchor Rebecca Jarvis followed up by asking about how the Obama reelection campaign saw the former Speaker, he raised the "likeability" issues with Newt:

Chris Matthews must be seriously concerned about Barack Obama's reelection chances.

On the syndicated program bearing his name this weekend, the man who used to get a thrill up his leg whenever a certain junior senator from Illinois spoke said that George W. Bush did a better job of using television to convey his message than the current White House resident has (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Someone please tell Joe Klein that it's Halloween, not April Fools' Day.

The Time columnist held forth on the magazine's Swampland blog on Friday that it's "hilarious" of Republican critics to slam President Obama for deploying class warfare. After all, on economic policy, the president is "as centrist if you can get."

In fact, Klein huffed, President Obama may be as conservative as Ronald Reagan:

This weekend's syndicated Chris Matthews Show spent the entire first segment talking about how America wants more centrist politicians looking to compromise with their political rivals.

The host and his guests believe the Republican presidential candidate that best exemplifies this moderate stance is Mitt Romney, with Time's Joe Klein actually saying he gave on Tuesday "one of the most impressive, impeccable debate performances I’ve ever seen" - but the panel still thinks Romney's got a very serious Mormon problem (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Throughout his tenure, there have been several facets in which President Obama has been demonstrably weak on leadership, with the debt debate coming to the forefront in recent months.  Now however, lost in that news cycle has been another failure of leadership for the President – his own request to tone down violent rhetoric in this country.  For it was mere months ago that Obama stood in front of a crowd in Tucson that had anxiously sought leadership amidst the chaos of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting; a teachable moment that had The Guardian gushing about how the President had delivered “calm amid the toxic rhetoric.”

That moment of calm has long since dissipated.  Where once the President had denounced discourse that places “the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do”, we hear Republicans blamed for holding the American people hostage to their economic policies.  Where once we were urged to talk “with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds”, we now hear Tea Party members being denounced as terrorists.

Make no mistake, this ratcheting up of terrorism and hostage-taking discourse directly coincides with recent events in Norway.  The instant that Oslo terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, was labeled as a ‘right-wing Christian’, liberals finally had their moment to seize upon - not just a chance to label conservatives as extreme ideologues but a chance to label them as violent ideologues.  This message has been a coordinated and vicious attack amongst the media, the Democrats, and most assuredly, the President.

Chris Matthews as usual had four guests on the weekly syndicated program bearing his name.

When he asked them which of the current Republican candidates could end up being a great president, nobody chose to identify a single one (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Time magazine's Joe Klein said this weekend that President Obama "is winning" the debt ceiling debate.

Klein told his fellow panelists on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," "He is coming across as the most reasonable guy in a crazy city...When he says things like 'Eat your peas,' that's language Americans can understand" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Who on Earth would claim the next election matchup is Pragmatic Democrat vs. Radical End-of-All-Regulation Republican? Time’s Joe Klein would, in Time’s June 27 cover story on the GOP candidates. He ended the piece like this:

Some presidential campaigns - 1960, 1980, 1992, 2008 - are exhilarating, suffused with hope and excitement. This is not likely to be one of those. It is likely to be an election that no one wins but someone loses. It will be a reversal of politics past: a pragmatic Democrat will be facing a Republican with all sorts of big ideas, promising an unregulated, laissez-faire American paradise.

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Time magazine's Joe Klein said on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" Barack Obama has a better relationship with the military than George W. Bush did.

Almost on cue, Gallup released a poll Monday finding military personnel and veterans give Obama lower marks than the rest of the population:

The Justice Department is expected to indict former Senator John Edwards as early as Wednesday for violating federal campaign finance laws.

On this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show," the host along with Time magazine's Joe Klein and the Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan said the DOJ should leave Edwards alone (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Time magazine's Joe Klein this weekend claimed President Obama has a better relationship with the military than George W. Bush did when he was Commander-in-Chief.

Such hypocritically was said on "The Chris Matthews Show" just moments before Klein noted that the military were "very much opposed" to attacking Libya (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

Andrew Sullivan this weekend seemed to shock Chris Matthews when he said that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin could actually beat President Obama in next year's elections running as the "principled candidate" representing "this grassroots movement of cutting government down to size."

Maybe even more surprising, Time's Joe Klein seemed to agree telling the host of "The Chris Matthews Show," "You were around in ’79 and ’80 as I was. Did you see many people in the Carter administration think that Ronald Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The conventional wisdom in the liberal media is that the special election in NY-26 was a referendum on the Ryan budget, which the voters rejected by electing the Democratic candidate.

Despite the flaws in this talking point, which NewsBusters' Lachlan Markay explains here, Time magazine's Joe Klein took this argument to a whole new low.

On the May 25 edition of MSNBC's "Last Word," Klein chortled, "[NY-26] was a victory for socialism!"

Klein has since tried to walk back this declaration, but it wasn't the only bizarre claim he made on Lawrence O'Donnell's prime-time program.

In his May 2 Swampland blog post "Osama Gone, and Now...", Time's Joe Klein makes some arguably contradictory assertions in his thoughts on the role former President Bush played in ultimately finding and killing Osama bin Laden:

As NewsBusters has been reporting, since President Obama once again proposed letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the highest earning Americans, the media have been supporting it almost 24 hours a day.

Doing his part this weekend was Chris Matthews who after the introduction of the syndicated program bearing his name actually began the show, "Why is taxing the rich so hard?" (video follows with transcript and lots of commentary):

President Obama is "Mr. Prudent," a grown-up heralding "deficit sanity" in a Washington gone mad with "delusional" Republican plans for draconian budget cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy.

That's the predictable leftist talking point-laden take that Time magazine's Joe Klein had after listening to President Obama's hectoring lecture yesterday at George Washington University (emphasis mine):

Burning a copy of the Koran is morally equivalent to flying a plane into the World Trade Center and equally eternally damnable.

That's essentially the fatwa of Time magazine's Joe Klein in an April 1 blog post at the magazine's Swampland blog.

Klein was condemning Florida pastor Terry Jones's "trial" and subsequent burning of a Koran which allegedly have sparked a murderous rampage against UN workers in Afghanistan last week:

[T]here should be no confusion about this: Jones's act was murderous as any suicide bomber's. If there is a hell, he's just guaranteed himself an afterlifetime membership.

One has to wonder if Klein would say the same thing about a taxpayer-funded artist who photographed a crucifix soaked in a jar of urine or portrayed the Virgin Mary in elephant dung.