There's been a whole lot of inside-the-blogosphere angst today about Joe Klein. He entered the blogosphere today and immediate stuck his foot in his mouth. Just like his column in Time actually.

Dave Roberts has written about the phenomena of "centrists" among the punditry in a post on Huffington today.

So what's the dynamic now amidst the Beltway chattering classes? Where's the center? Why, it's still in the exact same place! The people who advocated for war, and who advocate for more war, and who were wrong about everything, are still the "serious" people. The people who advocated against this fiasco, and are advocating for ending it, and who were right about everything, are still the dirty hippies who never show up on cable news or in major media op-eds. Expeditious withdrawal is a fringe leftist position, despite being supported by a clear majority of the country.

In other words, the "center" has become utterly detached from facts, substance, or majority opinion. It's an insular, self-sustaining myth, all about the vanity and egos of powerful people in the Beltway clusterfuck. It's about them, their self-flattery, their exclusive club, not Iraq. For a truly parodic example of this dynamic and its incredible staying power, check out Joe Klein's blog post, wherein he informs us that OK, the dirty hippies were right about Iraq, but they still sound silly and their opponents are still more "serious." One can only marvel.

Roberts points out that the leftists of the 60'saren't the dirty fucking hippies of today. No, the baby-boomers street protestors have indeed integrated into the self-absorbed immoral culture that sent this country off to a revenge fueled military tirade in Iraq. No, it's the right wingers who are still traumatized by the 60's and having been so wrong about Vietnam who have created the strawman of a wild-eyed left. In fact, if you believe the polls, most of the country could actually be called the dirty hippies.

The liberal punditocrsy is corrupt. They are not yet irrelevent, but they will be soon. They continue to fight the political battles of the 70's and think that the way to relevancy is by attacking the blogosphere on style points. Even Klein admits that liberals were right about Iraq, but boldly tries to sell the kool-aid of rudeness as the reason to ignore the left.

Well Joe. Welcome to the blogosphere.

Finally, why doesn't someone besides Media Matters ever rate the punditocrsy? Wouldn't it be cool if, every week, Stephanopolis did a review of each of his guests and the quality of the prescience? I mean seriously, what value is there on having people on camera who are consistently, predictably wrong?

I know I know. Turn off the teevee and just Fogetaboutit.

Kevin Drum hints at the silliness with this question:

Roughly speaking, when it comes to questions of military force and foreign military interventions, Bill Kristol is about as far to the extreme right as Noam Chomsky is to the extreme left. What's more, they both have about the same affect (sober and clinical), they have clear ideologies that they follow consistently and predictably, and they both dress nicely. In fact, they are pretty close to being mirror images.

Question: Is this correct? Why or why not?

Ever seen Noam on teevee?