Joe Klein on Jim Bohannon
Published by Mike Stark April 20th, 2006 in UncategorizedBackground from Crooks & Liars.
I’ll transcribe the call (my comments in bold and bracketed)…
Jim Bohannon: Right now let’s talk to Mike in Albany, NY. Good evening Mike.
Mike Stark: You know, if you were to ask a random sample of americans who the Secretary of State was, I’d bet that less than 25% of the people could tell you.
Jim: I think that’s optimistic.
Mike: Exactly. So while I’d agree that Americans aren’t stupid because by definition we are of average intelligence, I don’t think they are politically very astute. Thirty second commercials work for a reason… I guess my question is: Aren’t we stupid?
[his new book is called, “Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized By People Who Think You’re Stupid“]
Jim: well you know, honestly, in fact, Mike anticipated where I was going with this. I think he makes a real point that to a certain extent, the people that think we are stupid have a case to be made.
Joe Klein: Well part of the case is this. We’ve come through this remarkable period - unprecedented period of peace and prosperity, of affluence. And during that time, politics really wasn’t that important. You know, it wasn’t a central event in people’s lives and we have lost the habits of citizenship. There’s no question about that. But I do believe that now, after 9/11, given the various events that are going on in the country and the world right now… I may be a romantic - in fact ya gotta be a romantic (Jim and Joe laughing) to be doing this for 37 years. I mean cynicism just won’t cut it after a while.
[yeah, unprecedented years peace and prosperity… politics didn’t matter… except when we were crouching under our desks as part of “duck and cover” drills… or when JFK, RFK, MLK and the Kent State students were shot… Vietnam? an insignificant blip…]
Jim: (singing) …dream the impossible dream…
Joe: But actually when I’m out in the country, people are concerned and they’re upset and in 2004 they were more active and more actively involved than I have seen them in years.
Jim: But, on the other hand, in all fairness, the people you will run into as you cover candidates and rallies and caucuses and the like are the creme de la creme of American political knowledge. Even if they are average citizens, they wouldn’t even be there if…
Joe: Well it’s not just… I don’t ONLY cover politics… I go out to… sometimes I go out to cover education- inner-city education - or other issues - and when I do that, that’s not necessarily the creme de la political creme…
[who isn’t the political creme de la creme? “inner-city education” people… you know, those folks that vote democrat because they are stupid…]
Jim: OK, Mike, anything else you want to add?
Mike: Yeah. I did want to make one suggestion and that is that the media and pundocracy may have a lot to do with what I see as American stupidity. Now no disrespect intended, but one noted pundit last weekend suggested that, you know, it might be OK to nuke Iran. And I’m wondering, I have to ask about this… Have you thought through the consequences of that Mr. Klein?
Joe: what makes you think that I would be in favor of nuking Iran?
Mike: Just what you said last weekend that…
Joe: (interrupting) Did you watch…
Mike: (continuuing) it should be an option.
Joe: Oh… Oh… OK. I said that it should be an option. And I do believe that it should be an option. But let me tell you what I actually believe about this. First of all, it should be an option and I think it doesn’t do us any harm for the Iranians, if they are going to go around saying crazy things, to think that we might act crazily as well.
[OK, so let’s act crazy… maybe we can send the Son of Sam in to negotiate for us… better yet, let’s get a compulsive masturbator that likes to bellow Elvis tunes while hopping on one foot do do our negotiating for us… now that would be crazy!]
Mike: So it’s not really an option…
Joe: No, but let me say this. It’s not really an option because I don’t believe that the Bush administration, given the disastrous foreign policy of the last five years, has the credibility or the wherewithall to act unilaterally attack Iraq (sic).[this has got to be Klein at his absolute fucking stupidest. He still trusts the Bush administration to act rationally. wow.] And as a matter of principle, throughout my entire career, my entire career I’ve believed that we can only use force when we do it in concert with out allies as we did in the first Gulf War, as we did in Kosove when it was NATO. So for you to say that I am in favor of nuking Iran, you sound like one of those left wing bloggers who are so routinely innaccurate in everything they write about.
[37 years produced a calcified and fearful little rodent of a man… retire Joe - your time has passed]
Mike: I am a left wing blogger…
Jim: Well, fair enough. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about that as much as we are to talk about the subject at hand, so you’ve made your point there. Although, where i thought you were going with this, I will quote from Joe Klein’s book, Politics Lost. “A generation of Americans came to believe that political discourse consisted mostly of rabid hyperbole.” And in that regard the punditocracy, I suppose, has contributed to the coarsening of discourse. But that rhetorical wrestling sells.
Joe: That’s right. Well that’s why I’ve always been akind of a problem on TV - because I’m a flaming moderate. You know CNN when I was under contract to them never knew whether to put me on the left or on the right because, depending on the issue, I’ll go where I think the truth is.
[now that we know Joe is no liberal, can we please, please get a balancing voice at Time Magazine?]
Jim: Yes, I’ve run across that same problem myself and it is a part of American discourse these days but it coarsens, it makes simplistic and it, I don’t know - it probably has added a few people that watch the sport, but i don’t know that it has added much to public understanding.
Joe: But can I say something… that you know… we talk about these dreadful negative ads and they’re so awful. And the fact is that the smarter consultants that I’ve been speaking to recently now believe that they are pretty ineffective because of the invention of the clicker. People will see one of those things and they’ll move - they’ll go to another station.
[I had a “clicker” in 1979… is Joe trying to say that it’s only today people are figuring out how to use it?]
10 Responses to “Joe Klein on Jim Bohannon”
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Creme de la creme? That would be the folks whose pack-like mentality limits them to focusing on 1 or 2 single issues that they consider immoral. They’re not political at all, any more than they are good Christians. These people don’t give a shit about the crumbling bridges, highways, levees, the melting arctic, the elderly, the homeless, the veterans, uninsured families, American children in general who are getting stupider and fatter, seas so polluted that they have to post warning signs not to eat the fish, and on and on.
Thanks for keeping ‘em real, Mike. You may be the only one who’s doing this, but you’re pretty dang good at it.
Nicely done, Mike. You definitely got under Joe’s skin. But it’s so easy, isn’t it? What an ass the man is.
My name is Daniel Sullivan.My two older brothers used to beat the shit out of me until I was 16 and I beat the shit out of them both.I thought I would feel joy of vindication,but I felt terrible.I beat the shit out of each of them several times until I stopped and became a pacifist.
People like Joe Klein and the Bush gang have caused me to doubt my pacifism.When I see what their doing to this country and how they bully people I want to beat the shit out of them.I don`t do it because I`d just feel terrible again.I`m not going to hurt myself just because wI live in a country run by a bunch of banal,bullying cowards.
Both my brothers were cowards.Rather than stand up to their”demons,” they both died rich and young from addiction.I now spend a great deal of my time trying to help people like my brothers,Klein,and the Bush gang.
so when is an option not an option?
klein is a dork
Although, where i thought you were going with this, I will quote from Joe Klein’s book, Politics Lost. “A generation of Americans came to believe that political discourse consisted mostly of rabid hyperbole.”
And yet he doesn’t ask Klein whether crazy talk over Iran falls into that category? WTF?
Well, that does it, Joe finally provided the missing piece of my argument. The reason most Americans are so clueless (and whether you wish to admit it or not the savvy ones are Democrats and the abslolutely fucking ignoramuses and imbeciles of the world are far right leaning) is because of……………..the clicker.
Joe, anyone who condones leaving the options of using nuclear weapons open is a damned fool, and equally guilty of maniacal ranting as the President of Iran.
That will show them, we will act just as stupid. Great plan Joe.
why is it that they (republican neo-cons)have managed to fool most of the people most of the time? I think it’s bin laden’s fault.
We need to get more sane people into the public forum. Right now it is dominated by disgusting people.
And a very important thing that must be interjected into the public discourse is that attacking Iran is not an option because it would be illegal. Our Constitution makes it clear that when we sign a international treaty, which the UN Charter is, it becomes law of the land. A preemptive attack on Iran violates the United Nations Charter, which is a treaty and part of the supreme law of the United States under Article 6, clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. signed the UN Charter and we are obligated to uphold the law according to our own Constitution. A treaty that we sign becomes the “law of the land” according to our Constitution.
Bombing Iran is not only illegal and unjust, it is an unacceptable risk. The risks of “stopping Iran” are greater than not “stopping Iran.” It isn’t just my opinion that the risks that come with military actions against Iran are unacceptable. Look at the conclusion drawn from war-game simulations of attacking Iran. The final conclusion after running through many options was expressed by General Gardiner, a simulations expert at the U.S. Army’s National War College:
“After all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers,” Sam Gardiner said of his exercise. “You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work.“”
The CIA and DIA have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, ‘The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating.‘” I HOPE BUSH LISTENS! But the Bush Administration OFTEN IGNORES advice from intelligence.