It seems that Joe hates being labeled a wanker….Here’s some advice. Stop Wanking…
(Via C&L)
BooMan caught Joke Line in some of his typical "journalmalism":
Do me a favor and look at the roll call of the House vote on the Iraq supplemental. You should see the name Harman on this list of 'Nays'. She's right there between Hare and Hastings (FL) and it's pretty clear that the House clerk recorded her vote as a 'no'. Maybe that is some kind of clerical error, or maybe Jane has forgotten how to vote, but it seems to make a mockery of Smokin' Joe Klein's point here:Now there is a lot of irony coming up around the bend in Joke Line's Triple Twit. Part of the super duper wanker's usual "Blame those Lefy Bloggers!" response:
I was wrong, sadly, last week to say that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would vote for the Iraq supplemental bill. They voted against. As readers here know, I would have voted for the bill. Voting against it means you're in favor of a precipitous departure from Iraq...Like I said, maybe there is a clerical error, but right now the official tally shows that Harman could indeed 'do that'. As for Klein's other point, Obama and Hillary voted 'nay' for the same reason that many of their colleagues voted 'yes'. They have no balls. But, unlike their colleagues, they got the vote right. Contrary to Klein's childish assessment, a nay vote on this bill wasn't a vote for a 'precipitous departure from Iraq'. It was plainly and simply a vote against funding the war with ineffectual strings attached....Yesterday I spoke with Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Ca.) just back from Iraq, who voted for the bill--as did a majority of Democrats who are not running for President. "Look, I would love to have cast a vote against Bush on this. We need a new strategy and I hope we can force one in September," she told me. "But I flew into Baghdad on a troop transport with 150 kids, heading into the field. To vote against this bill was to vote against giving them the equipment, the armor they need. I couldn't do that."
First, let me say that I really enjoy blogging. It's a brilliant format for keeping readers up to date on the things I care about—and for exchanging information with them. I recently asked Swampland readers with military experience to comment on whether it was General David Petraeus' "duty" to tell the unvarnished truth about Iraq when he testifies on Capitol Hill in September. About a dozen readers responded with links to treatises about "duty" in various military journals. Furthermore, I've found that some great reporting takes place in the blogosphere: Juan Cole's Iraq updates are invaluable, Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo did serious muckraking about the U.S. attorneys scandal, and Ezra Klein (no relation) is excellent on health care. I love linking to smart work by others, something you just can't do in a print column.
The irony of Joke Line's Triple Twit response? Right now, getting cross country traffic from big national Blogs is a reponse from one of those "great reporting" Blogs to Joke Line's sad bashing of his journalmalism pointing out Joke Line's lies:
Double wanker and super duper triple twit Joe Klein. I wonder if he'll link to that great diary at Josh Marshall's community?Joe Klein has made one of his periodic attacks on the liberal blogosphere. As usual in order to make himself look good, and make his critics look ridiculous, he lies about what actually happened.
Here’s Klein’s version:
A strange thing happened to me the day the House of Representatives voted to pass the Iraq-war-funding bill. Congresswoman Jane Harman of California called as the debate was taking place. "Look, I would love to have cast a vote against Bush on this," she told me. "We need a new strategy, and I hope we can force one in September. But I flew into Baghdad [with 150 young soldiers recently]. To vote against this bill was to vote against giving them the equipment... they need. I couldn't do that." I posted what Harman said on Swampland, the political blog at Time.com, along with my opinion that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had changed their positions and voted against the funding for the worst possible reason: presidential politics.
And then Harman changed her position. After we spoke, she voted against the funding. The next day, I was blasted by a number of left-wing bloggers: Klein screwed up! I had quoted Harman in the past tense—common usage for politicians who know their words will appear after a vote takes place. That was sloppy and... suspicious! Proof that you just can't trust the mainstream media. On Eschaton, a blog that specializes in media bashing, I was given the coveted "Wanker of the Day" award. Eventually, Harman got wind of this and called, unbidden, to apologize for misleading me, saying I had quoted her correctly but she had changed her mind to reflect the sentiments of her constituents. I published her statement and still got hammered by bloggers and Swampland commenters for "stalking" Harman into an apology, for not checking her vote in the Congressional Record, for being a "water boy for the right wing" and many other riffs unfit to print.Or to sum in up. Klein spoke to Harmon prior to the vote, and she indicated she would vote for the supplemental. Klein then posts the Harman quote and also says that Clinton and Obama, in voting against the supplemental, had changed their positions. Then Harman changed her position, and the next day bloggers attacked him. Atrios called him a wanker. Harman later called him to apologize, Klein published her statement, but the criticism did not let up either in the blogosphere or among the commenters at Swampland.
Except this is not what happened. The Iraq vote was taken in the House at 6:45 PM, and in the Senate at 8:26 PM on May 24. Joe posted his claim about Harmon’s vote – and Clinton and Obama’s change of position at 9:37 AM the next day. Within two hours, the Swampland commenters were pointing out that Joe had gotten Harman’s vote wrong. By 11:13, Booman Tribune had noted that Klein had gotten it wrong, and at 12:53 Atrios cited Klein as “wanker of the day”, linking to BooMan. Sometime after 4PM, Joe gets a call from a Harman staffer, telling him that Harman had voted against the bill, and Klein posts that at 5:13PM. Later that night, Harman leaves a voicemail apologizing to Klein, which he posts at 12:54 the next day.
In other words, while Klein would have you believe that he posted about Harmon’s vote before she changed her mind (“I posted what Harman said on Swampland…[t]hen Harman changed her mind”) there was more than 15 hours between the time Harman changed her mind, and Joe said she’d voted for the bill.
And while Joe’s commenters (who he cites later for their viciousness) tried repeatedly to get Joe to correct his post beginning less than two hours after he posted it, he ignored them. Only when he got the staffer’s call did he correct the record, and then it took him an extra hour to do so. Harman’s call didn’t come until well after the staffers call.
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