In his Time column this week, Klein writes:

So what should Obama do about Afghanistan? His dilemma isn't as stark as has been posed in recent press accounts, with screamers on the right demanding slavish devotion to the military's wish list and screamers on the left demanding a withdrawal. The U.S. military has become far more ... nuanced when it comes to making requests of presidents. The negotiations about what [Gen. Stanley] McChrystal can officially request will not take place anywhere near the public eye. It is very likely that more troops will be sent--to build and train the Afghan security forces, it will be said. Obama's problems on the left will be mitigated by the fact that most Democrats have also supported this war--as opposed to Iraq's--and have little desire to reverse themselves. They don't want to hurt the President, and they don't want to be perceived as weak on defense come election time.

OK, "screamers on the left" are demanding withdrawal. That would make "the left" the majority of the public, right? Klein counsels that left opposition will have little effect, since "most Democrats have also supported this war--as opposed to Iraq's--and have little desire to reverse themselves."  It's hard to figure out why this is true, or frankly why it would matter--the general public has reversed its opinion quite dramatically, hasn't it?

Apparently that doesn't much matter;  the real issue here are the Democratic politicians, who "don't want to hurt the president, and they don't want to be perceived as weak on defense come election time." Funny, then, that the public doesn't seem to mind being seen as "weak on defense," if that's really how one would describe opposition to escalating the war in Afghanistan.

There's almost too much to say about this recent column Joe Klein wrote in Time magazine. But let's start by parsing this:

In the good old days of the last century, the years before the collapse of the economy and the World Trade Center towers, political discourse in the U.S. was, too often, rutted in issues that didn't affect the lives of most people. They were important moral and symbolic issues, to be sure. And they were difficult issues, although their subtleties were obscured by extremists, who tended to dominate the debate. Still, the people directly affected by the so-called social issues--abortion, gay marriage, racial preferences--pale in comparison with the tens of millions who have lost their jobs and fortunes in the past year and with the global, life-and-death impact of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Didn't affect the lives of most people"? The people who are "directly affected" by abortion, gay marriage and "racial preferences" are women (roughly half of whom experience an unintended pregnancy at least once in their life), people of color and gay people--i.e., just about everyone except straight white males like Klein.

(I'm still trying to figure out what an "extremist" pro-gay position on gay marriage would be. Is that the one where gay rights advocates "want to change the way *I* live"?)

Then Klein writes this:

Late-term abortions--no more than a few percent of the total performed in the U.S.--were Tiller's specialty. These are usually hard cases, sometimes the result of rape or incest or the discovery of severe birth defects. But they are, without question, the taking of a life. At the same time, the pro-life community should concede that sex education and the widespread availability of morning-after pills and condoms are necessary if we're going to prevent these tragedies.

First of all, abortions performed after 19 weeks actually account for only 1.1 percent of all abortions. Viability usually starts around 24 weeks, so what are usually termed "late-term" abortions surely account for well under 1 percent. More importantly, that they are "without question, the taking of a life" is just kinder, gentler baby-killer language. And how are "sex education and the widespread availability of morning-after pills and condoms" going to prevent "the discovery of severe birth defects"?

Finally, Klein launches into an attack on affirmative action:

The Sotomayor debate has been polluted by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, who claim, ridiculously, that the judge is a racist. That sort of rant is so-o-o 20th century. Beneath the pollution, however, is a serious policy question that needs to be resolved: With an African-American president and a polychromatic society moving toward racial (if not economic) equity, why do we still need preferences enshrined in law?

Klein's assertion that we're "moving toward racial...equity" is a little hard to figure; the fact that a biracial man was elected president doesn't change the reality for people of color that racial disparities in the United States are still very much with us.

Klein went on to say that Judge Sonia Sotomayor crossed a line

when she agreed in 2008 to toss the results of a promotion exam for the New Haven, Conn., fire department because an insufficient number of minorities passed it. That seems inherently unfair to those who succeeded--including the dyslexic firefighter Frank Ricci, who hired tutors to help him pass and whose name adorns the case. The lack of minority success does not necessarily signify the presence of racial prejudice. The best way to rectify such a situation is to make sure the next test is truer. An appropriate 21st century standard should be proof of actual discrimination against specific individuals.

What, exactly, does he mean by "make sure the next test is truer"? If the test was flawed, the logical thing to do would be to throw out the results. But then, logic doesn't seem to be Klein's strong suit.

On Monday (1/19/09), Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz took a look at the health of Time and Newsweek, and almost immediately rendered a political judgment:

The rival editors are turning out weeklies that are smaller, more serious, more opinionated and, though they are loath to admit it, more liberal. They are pursuing a more elite audience, in print and on the Web, abandoning the old Henry Luce notion of catering to the masses. It is nothing less than a survival strategy.

Hmm. Maybe those magazine editors are "loath to admit" they publish liberal magazines because, well, they don't? Kurtz sure doesn't offer much evidence to that effect. Here is how he makes his case:

One answer is to jettison the old straddle-the-center formula in which the newsweeklies spoke with an institutional voice rather than publish bylines. Each magazine's lead columnist -- Time's Joe Klein, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter -- is liberal. Newsweek has been running columns by Jacob Weisberg, the liberal editor of Slate, another Post Co. property. Newsweek also ran a controversial cover last month headlined "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage" -- "one of the last great civil rights issues," Meacham says. And its top writers appear regularly on liberal talkshows on MSNBC, with which it has a news partnership.

Time's Joe Klein is not what one would consider a liberal. Alter might be, though he's clearly of the torture-approving, bash-the-teachers-unions, move-the-Democrats-to-the-right model. Newsweek also publishes regular pieces from the likes of Fareed Zakaria, George Will and Robert Samuelson--none of whom could be called liberal.

Kurtz played up the recent pro-gay marriage cover story, but later recalled that the magazine also turned in cover stories about Obama's supposed elitism and the (misguided) notion that the United States remained a center-right nation even after Obama's victory. Kurtz could have also mentioned the magazine's recent attempt to rehabilitate Dick Cheney and torture.

About Time, Kurtz wrote:

Time ran a column last week by liberal academic Jeffrey Sachs titled "The Case for Bigger Government." This week's issue features Obama, Time's Person of the Year, yet again, and the cover headline "Great Expectations," plus a piece on his wife as "America's Next Top Model."

Wait--Time put Obama on its cover? This week? Well, that is curious news judgment.

Kurtz adds:

Stengel's ideal staffer is Mark Halperin, whom he hired from ABC. Halperin created the political tip sheet the Page for Time.com and the magazine, and often appears on television. Both newsweeklies now realize they are competing on the Web as much as on the newsstand.

Halperin is well-known for attacking supposed liberal bias in the media, denounced the supposed pro-Obama media bias as "disgusting,"  and even advocated getting liberals out of newsrooms. This guy is the "ideal staffer" at a magazine Kurtz sees as moving left? Please explain.