Joe Klein has decided he wants to cross swords with me again. I’m always happy to oblige.

1. By way of background: I wrote a post on The Corner last week in which I drew attention to the fact that Klein, in his Time column, had praised Obama this way:

[Obama] could have planted solar panels and a wind turbine on the White House roof or blasted the Bush Administration as he signed an Executive Order banning torture or lacerated the bankers who got us into the economic mess. But that’s not his style, apparently. He has reversed the tactical, win-the-news-cycle sensibility of recent presidencies. During his first week in office, at least, he opted for strategy and substance over showbiz.

I then pointed out that after the column was published, Obama did exactly the opposite of what Klein praised Obama for doing. Obama lacerated Wall Street executives for bonuses they had received in 2008. I ended my posting by writing this:

So it turns out that (by Klein’s own standard) Obama & Company have not reversed the tactical, win-the-news-cycle sensibility of recent presidencies. And they have opted for a strategy of showbiz over substance. I’m sure we can count on Joe Klein to point this out. Unless, of course, Klein, having discovered yet a new political superhero, turns into a cheerleader instead of a reporter.

2. Klein responded to me by saying, in effect, he had beaten me to the punch. The previous day, you see, in light of Obama’s harsh criticism of Wall Street executives, Klein amended his column. But here’s where things get messy for Joe. Having praised Obama in his column for not criticizing Wall Streeters, Klein then proceeds in his blog to praise Obama for–you guessed it–criticizing Wall Streeters. After quoting Obama’s words, Klein writes, “You go, guy.”

This passes for tough-minded commentary in the Age of Obama.

This type of thing is precisely what I meant when I said Joe had discovered a new political superhero. Joe, having fallen under the Obama spell, has shown the remarkable ability to wave palm branches for Obama for doing one thing on Tuesday and for doing the opposite thing on Thursday.

Being besotted (like being outraged) isn’t unusual for Klein. The same thing happened to him with Bill Clinton. In George Stephanopoulos’s book All Too Human, for example, we read that during a Clinton campaign speech during the 1992 campaign:

Joe Klein and I took it all in from the back of the room with tears in our eyes – moved by the emotional moment, expectation, and apprehension. Reporters are paid to be dispassionate, but Joe was either smitten with Clinton or doing a smooth job of spinning me.

3. Klein continues his apparently impossible-to-break habit of ad hominem attacks on those with whom he disagrees, referring to me as a “former Bush propagandist” and declares “It’s also diabetically [sic] rich for Wehner to be accusing anyone of being a cheerleader, given his sordid track record as Karl Rove’s chief publicist and hit man.” Klein adds that I work at:

The Center for Unethical Public Policy (oh, sorry: it’s the Center for Ethics and Public Policy, ironically enough)

I guess this is what passes for wit at Time these days. (For the record, I work at the Ethics and Public Policy Center; Klein got an easy-to-verify fact wrong yet again.)

Here’s the problem, though: With Joe’s history, he should be a tad bit more careful about attacking people over ethics and honesty. I say that because it is a matter of public record that Joe lied–repeatedly, over a long period of time, and to countless people–when he flatly denied being the author of Primary Colors. (At one point Klein said he would stake his “journalistic credibility” on his statements that he was not Anonymous. And while working for CBS, he assured the audience, “It’s not me.”)

You may recall that in 1996 it was a parlor game in Washington to figure out who the author, Anonymous, was. There was growing speculation that it was Klein. He denied it to virtually everyone. And when it was finally demonstrated beyond any doubt that Klein was the author, Klein shrugged off his lies as no big deal. On Joe’s behalf, however, it should be stated that he deceived people for what he considered to be a sacred journalistic principle: the sales of his book (the guessing game about the author increased attention to, and interest in, Primary Colors). To compound the problem, when Klein’s identify was revealed, he held a press conference in which he lashed out, in an angry and emotional way, at his critics.

Klein made a very serious mistake and, I think, badly hurt his credibility. But I didn’t think then, or now, that Klein should have been run out of town. There is certainly more to Klein, who possesses genuinely admirable qualities, than this episode of deception. At the same time, there is something “diabetically [sic] rich” for Klein to be engaging in a finger-wagging lecture on ethics.

Journalist, heal thyself.