Joe Klein Denounces Left Wingnuts...Sort Of...

Roughly 8 years after the Stalinist left took over the direction of the Democrats as well as nominally supportive websites, Joe Klein of "Time" (Beware the Bloggers' Bile) finally notices how shrill they are when he appears to deviate from the party line in that publication:

But the smart stuff [like Joe Klein's?] is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. Anyone who doesn't move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable.

Wow. Is a lefty journalist (what other kind is there in the MSM?) finally learning that you can get read out of The Party if you're not in lockstep with the Stalinists who control its heart? Well, not exactly. Klein, wary of having a public epiphany based on empirical logic, resorts to moral equivalence and effectively blames the left's attitude on (of course) Rush Limbaugh, et. al.:

Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

And that is precisely the danger here. Fury begets fury. Poison from the right-wing talk shows seeped into the Republican Party's bloodstream and sent that party off the deep end. Limbaugh's show—where Dick Cheney frequently expatiates—has become the voice of the Republican establishment. The same could happen to the Democrats.

You have to love this. Hard-left goons in the blogosphere, who now, egged on by Soros money, set the tone forAmerica's Socialist Party, aka, the Democrats, magically became this way because of Rush Limbaugh. And, of course, the Bushies, with their "big lies and smear tactics." Wonder what Joe thinks of the Clintonistas in retrospect, and their extensive cadre of "leave no opponent unsmeared" attack dogs with their bottomless bag of dirty tricks. Klein and any honest Dems who remain would do well to examine themselves before resorting to the facile (and therefore popular) tactic of blaming their obvious failings on imaginary enemies, the better to preserve their own sense of moral purity. One cannot help but think back to the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican which efficiently and effectively explained this kind of behavior over 2000 years ago.

And you have to laugh that, after effecting the transference of left wingnut behavior to the Republicans, he worries that "The same could happen to the Democrats." Gee, could it really, Joe? Say it ain't so, Joe!

Klein ingenuously—no, obtusely—boasts that the kind of leftwing "spitballs" (his word) aimed at him for his "fair" reporting of events don't bother him, although they obviously bothered him enough to pen this piece in a way that exonerates his minor deviance from Party discipline by resorting to the usual vacuous attack on the hapless Bushies. But just to make sure we didn't miss his point, he explains to us how lesser mortals, as in Democrat politicians, can, unlike Joe, be ruinously swayed by the poisonous rhetoric emanating from the left-wing blogosphere. Which, of course, is the fault of the Bushies:

But they [the Democrats' field of presidential candidates] allowed themselves to be bullied into a more simplistic, more extreme position [on the war]. Why? Partly because they fear the power of the bloggers to set the debate and raise money against them. They may be right—in the short (primary election) term.... In the long term, however, kowtowing to extremists is exactly the opposite of what this country is looking for after the lethal radicalism of the Bush Administration.

Lethal radicalism. Of the Bush Administration. You have to love this. Democrats as victims. Of course.

It is the intolerance and radicalism of the "progressive" left—undiluted Stalinism, actually—that is proving lethal to our American system and its increasing inability to defend itself from Islamofascist predators. This is not readily apparent today. But the continuous assault on our laws, traditions, and way of life by the radical left in this country, which has continued unabated since the end of the Second World War, is the real lethality here, a stealth lethality that silences its critics while leaving America's enemies not only unscathed but strengthened.

The left is preparing, as it always has, for a political Armageddon it imagines will lead to a Socialist America and to a proletarian paradise that will be led, of course, by themselves. Won't they be surprised to discover that, when facing a prostrate United States at last, their allies, the mad mullahs, have written an entirely different ending for this stealthy revolution.