Joe Klein
Joe Klein is great. Full stop. He hated the Vietnam war and then he hated the Iraq war and had more courage than any other journalist in the mainstream, to nail it back in ’03 as a war for Israel’s security. He says it again here. And Klein is a liberal Zionist! He understands the importance of Ron Paul, who NPR says is at the top of the latest Iowa polls. Why? Because he’s antiwar!
Iowa Republicans are not neoconservatives. Ron Paul has gained ground after a debate in which his refusal to join the Iran warhawks was front and center. Indeed, in my travels around the country, I don’t meet many neoconservatives outside of Washington and New York. It’s one thing to just adore Israel, as the evangelical Christians do; it’s another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel’s national security.
Notice that he pins the tail on the ideology, neoconservatism. This is why David Brooks thought Paul had a “bad debate,” because he is trying to tell Americans about a dangerous ideology, neoconservatism. Oh and look how much air the NYT gives Ron Paul in its Iowa wrapup this morning. About one paragraph.
Ron Paul is an underdog. I’m glad to see he is doing better than the MSM gives attention to because of his position on foreign wars. I guess few candidates are perfect, particularly Republican ones. Perhaps he could change his views on social programs for poor people.
Wow, this is some pretty big cajones from Joey Klein! Good for him…..
“it’s another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel’s national security.”
And that is exactly what the average american thinks when they see Bill Kristol or one of these clowns on TV – “this guy just wants a bunch of Iowa Farm Boy Gentiles to fight on behalf of him and his cause.” And….. people don’t like it.
This makes my day – Keep pounding Mr. Paul ,…
New poll puts Ron Paul three points ahead in Iowa: Paul Leads in Iowa:
I have had my qualms with -and often times downright contempt for- Joe Klein over at Swampland for years. I’ve argued with him repeatedly, and he’s been more than generous in obliging me in some very lively discussions. His tone is often pompous and bombastic, and his dangerous fidelity to centrism is an intellectually bankrupt dismissal of liberal/conservative philosophy, always harping on about middle-ground compromise. He’s the epitome of the Washington insider, who rubs elbows with all the elites, and too frequently blabbers on about the answers lying in the middle, as if compromise between two poles will always bring about sensible, fair policies. No, at times wholly liberal ideas are needed, at other times a conservative approach is needed.
However, he’s been, at times, reasonable on Israel/Palestine, often willing to throw caution to the wind in his thorough denunciations of Likudnik-style Israeli policies. He has also, though, fell-back on his grade-school conceptualization of fairness in demanding tit-for-tat reciprocity. He’s a big proponent of Palestinian “gestures” in return for Israeli adherence to law. With this, I vehemently disagree. Joe Klein is the type of intellectual who will bloviate about the illegality of housing expansion in East Jerusalem, or the illegality of settlements in the West Bank in one blog post, and then mere days later, pontificate about the need for Palestinian “gestures” when Netanyahu agrees to 90-day moratoriums on illegal expansions. This is intellectual fraud, and pandering at its worst. If Joe Klein recognizes settlements and East Jerusalem expansions for what they are, illegal contraventions of international law and obstacles to peace, then he should not feel that Palestinians owe anything when Israeli administrations put temporary halts on such practices. Joe Klein, for all his charming admonitions of Israeli intransigence, is still too much of a coward to ever fully take the side of Palestinians from issue to issue. All must be fair, all must be equal. My message to you, Joe Klein, is this: there is no parity in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; hit me back when you grow a pair and mature enough to join us in that depressingly grey area we call reality.