Better Late Than Never

Can it be that Joe Klein finally gets it?

When Bush came to office--installed by the Supreme Court after receiving fewer votes than Al Gore--I speculated that the new President would have to govern in a bipartisan manner to be successful. He chose the opposite path, and his hyper-partisanship has proved to be a travesty of governance and a comprehensive failure. I've tried to be respectful of the man and the office, but the three defining sins of the Bush Administration--arrogance, incompetence, cynicism--are congenital: they're part of his personality. They're not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.

It only took him six years to figure this out; I guess that's better than the full eight, or (worse yet) in retrospect. But it cannot be stressed enough how crucial it is that opinion-mongers such as Klein start divesting themselves that this administration is somehow still entitled to "respect" in the form of downplaying the sheer mendacity and dishonesty that informs its every policy move. Because that has been the very vehicle by which they've gotten this far -- a cowed, complaisant press corps, afraid more than anything else of appearing too "strident", as if times called for anything other than passionate, committed, focused effort in exposing the truth and holding them accountable for it.

We have been counting on Klein and his compadres to do their jobs with such passion and commitment for six years now. They have failed utterly. If it is truly "increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead", then live up to your words, and make those remaining two years a time of accountability and probity. If nothing else, at least then you can look yourself in the mirror as a Serious Journalist, and say for once that you really did the best that you could. Because quite simply, that has not been the case, across the board. Frankly, in a course filled with irretrievable incompetence and petulant hostility, I find myself wondering what exactly Klein's final straw might have been, with so very many to choose from.

People will look back on this benighted period of time and wonder, perhaps more than any other single factor, why the media dicked around so lamely for so long, gave these bastards so much leeway. It's unconscionable. Time for them to regain their consciences, and their consciousness, starting perhaps with refusing to break-dance with MC Pork Jowls at the next glad-handing circle-jerk. The whole reason they pretend it's a game, you chumps, is so you'll have a harder time screwing over your "friends", even though they'd sell your ass down the river for a rusty nickel. Remember what your jobs actually are, instead of vesting your career aspirations, and the big things will start falling into place.