Joke Line, American Idiot

The Joke Line/FISA saga has reached car wreck proportions. It's painful to watch, and yet you can't look away.

To summarize, Klein wrote a pathetic piece for the Time print magazine, delivered to thousands of homes, about the new FISA bill, that included the demonstrable lie that the Democrats' bill would "give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans". When he was excoriated for buying Republican spin, he responded that telecom immunity is OK if they responded to direct orders from the President, which describes some different system of government, alien to the United States. Then he wrote this crappy correction wherein he admitted that he doesn't read the content of the subjects on which he reports.

But Klein, of course, never bothered to read the bill and still hasn't (even though he is published by Time to "report on" and opine about this bill). Instead, even now, he says that he has spoken with both Republicans and Democrats, and while Democrats insist that what he wrote was false, "the Republican Committee staff disagrees and says [his] reporting is correct."

In other words, Klein's GOP source(s) blatantly lied to him about what the bill does and doesn't do in order to manipulate him into uncritically feeding Time's readers the Rush Limbaugh Line -- namely, that Democrats are giving equal rights to Terrorists and preventing the Leader from eavesdropping on foreign Terrorists. And Klein dutifully wrote down what he was told in Time without bothering to find out if it was true and without ever bothering to talk to any of the bill's Democratic proponents. And no Time Editor knew enough or cared enough to bother correcting any of it. And thus, the unfortunate 4 million Americans who read and trust Time now think that the Democrats' FISA bill does the exact opposite of what it actually does.

After all of this - being burned by a source, buying Republican spin to repeat a lie - Klein then pulls the all-timer with this quote:

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

So this guy is paid to write about subjects and inform his readers, and he's basically throwing up his hands and saying he really can't figure it out so we should all have pity on him? Incredible. There is no dispute over the meaning of the RESTORE Act. Klein created one in order to hide his blatant falsehoods. And now, when they are revealed, he claims he can't possibly know anything about it. This is the problem with American journalism; you have a bunch of lazy dilettantes who aren't really interested in policy, who rely on official sources for their own opinions and then pass them on without comment.

Thus, for now, I just want to ask that everyone ponder the extreme lack of professionalism and corruption required for someone like Klein to write the article that he did accusing Democrats of wanting to give Terrorists the same rights as Americans (therefore showing, as always, that Democrats can't be trusted on national security), and then -- once he is exposed for having spewed outright falsehoods -- he announces that he really isn't interested in bothering to find out (and isn't even capable of determining) if anything he wrote was accurate.

As my post earlier today here demonstrates, that is hardly unusual behavior for Time. But that doesn't make it any less flabbergasting, or repugnant. Doesn't it go without saying: if Klein doesn't have the time or background to understand what he's writing about, then he ought not to write about it? Doesn't anyone at Time agree with that?

Turns out that the editor of the piece for the print magazine doesn't take well to criticism, hanging up on Jane Hamsher within ten seconds (Get the same treatment by calling her at 212-522-2022!). And now one of the authors of the bill has taken notice.

Let me repeat: our bill gives the intelligence community the tools and flexibility it needs to listen to the conversations between those who wish to do us harm. This bill provides exactly what the Director of National Intelligence asked for earlier this year: it explicitly states that no court order is required to listen to the conversations of foreigners that happen to pass through the U.S. telecommunications system. It does not grant Constitutional rights to foreign terrorists.

What we have not agreed to do is give this or any other President a permanent blank check to spy on you, your family, the members of your congregation, or any other American citizen without any judicial oversight - a position shared by an overwhelming majority of Americans according to the latest public opinion surveys on the topic.

If federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies want to read the email or listen to the phone call of an American citizen, they have to get - except in emergencies - a judge to issue a warrant allowing them do so, as the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution requires. Such a court order would be easy to get if there is cause to believe that the American's communications are important intelligence for the protection of our security. And in such "emergencies" there would be quick after-the-fact review by the courts. These are not "unimportant, obscure technical details" - this is the heart of the bill.

Look, Rep. Holt, Joke Line doesn't have the time to read your post. Just dress up as a Republican operative and write his column for him, that'll go much better.

In a sane world, this would be the end of Klein's career.