A Peek at a Villager Stripped Naked

The Beltway Villagers who direct and destroy our national political discourse pride themselves on their insider "knowledge," the personal relationships with lawmakers and powerbrokers that give the Villagers "insight" denied to the hoi polloi, especially the blogger variety of hoi.

But now Aimai gives us an insider look at Villager Extraordinaire Joe Klein, as he postures for party-goers at The Vineyard:

I was standing at the cookout minding my own business when Klein started pontificating for the rubes on how “surprising” and “shocking” it was that Grassley, of all people, should have come out and endorsed the “death panels” lie. I walked up and said “why are you surprised?” [edited to remove typo] to which he, in best pundit debater fashion (never allow yourself to admit you were just posing!), shot back “who says I'm surprised?” I said “well, you did. You just started your lecture saying “Its surprising.”” Its not surprising, the republicans have nothing left to lose and nothing left to gain at this point outside of pleasing the crazy base and attacking Obama and the dems.”

Aimai challenged him! How dare she! And Klein responded with the screaming, foot-stamping hysteria you rarely see outside reality tv shows. The more Aimai stripped away his facade of secret wisdom and above-it-all detachment, the louder he screamed.

Read the whole thing - it's hysterical. You'll never read the MSM the same way again.

And don't miss Greenwald's take.

Compared to TIME Magazine, Bill O'Reilly is Walter Cronkite

UPDATE BELOW

If you haven't been following Glenn Greenwald's blanket coverage of the Joe Klein/TIME Magazine debacle, TIME has finally jumped the shark.

Short version:

TIME Magazine is a mouthpiece for the war-mongering, Constitution-burning, Smirky-worshipping wingnut GOP, more blatant than the Washington Times, more shameless than Ann Coulter.

Long version:

Joe Klein posted on TIME's Swampbland blog obvious lies to support his thesis that Congressional Democrats are clueless about terrorism, then refused to retract them when the lies were exposed.

TIME's editor Richard Stengel not only refused to retract Klein's lies, he refused to allow the libeled members of Congress themselves to respond online or in print.

Instead, Stengel authorized three separate "corrections" that not only did not retract Klein's lies, they actually reinforced Klein's false accusations about the Democrats by avoiding the real issues and allowing the original lies to stand.

I've been reading TIME for more than 40 years, and subscribing for a quarter-century. But last week I cancelled my subscription, and I urge everyone who is still subscribing (admit it - mostly out of habit) to do so, too.

Newsweek is no improvement, having hired Karl Rove and given him prime pundit real estate to peddle his - we need a new word for what Rove spews, because "lies" just doesn't even come close.

I've switched to The Nation, a newsweekly with a much longer and far more honorable pedigree than TIME's. As the TV ad says, The Nation has "that liberal media bias you can't get anywhere else."

UPDATE, 7 p.m.: Via Blue Girl, you can get half-price gift subscriptions to The Nation here.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.