Walks Like A Duck, Talks Like A Duck...Ain't A Duck

Joe, excuse me but why are you writing about this blowhard anyway? If you think he's a twit, pick up the phone or send him an email.
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I have no interest in reading his stuff. All you're doing is helping promote his column. Kinda dumb if you ask me.

Seconding Andy. If a blowhard blows in the forest and there's no one there to hear him...

It's petty payback, and I am laughing out loud at the childishness of Klein in getting in a return dig. Hahahahaha.

That doesn't sound like a namby-pamby centrism to me.
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One of the big problems with our discourse is insisting on rating evertything alonng one dimension. To a beltway denizen Obama's agenda might seem mightily leftist but to someone who doesn't share the core assumption that suggests that America's proper role is traffic cop and arms merchant to the world and that it is incapable of error, let alone evil, then Obama is just another Villager.
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I oppose war and taxes. Does that mean I'm left, right or center? The question is meaningless as is the label when used by JK.

I'll be honest, Joe, I find your critique silly.
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As usual, Frank---who wrote a whole book about the triumph of nitwit conservatism in Kansas without proposing a single specific policy that liberals might pursue to win them back--has nothing to say about Obama's actual proposals. He's just worried about the body language.
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Considering that Frank's thesis was essentially that the people of Kansas should be voting for Democrats based on Democrats' existing policies and that they weren't because of "the body language", I find it odd that you would criticize him for failing to suggest a policy that the Dems should pursue. Maybe you should (re)read the book.
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Let's look a little deeper at your defense of Obama.
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Obama is proposing a stimulus package--including a massive, job-creating government investment program--that will total somewhere around $1 trillion.
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He has proposed a stimulus package that seriously threatens to be insufficient, even if $1T sounds like a big number. Furthermore, he has, as Krugman has noted, limited the focus to jump-starting the economy rather than proposing the time of massive infrastructure package that we really need. Sure it might not get 80 votes, but who cares? The train is leaving the station, Obama.
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He has pledged, and may well succeed in enacting, a near-universal health care plan.
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He has pledged to fight for a health-care plan that is a band-aid for a patient that is bleeding to death. Obama's plan would increase coverage, but not provide the efficiencies and cost-savings for taxpayers that a truly single-payer system would.
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He has pledged to reverse the Bush Administration's foreign policy
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I don't see too much criticism of Obama's foreign policy so far, so I'll pass on this.
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to negotiate a global warming treaty.
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Let's cut the crap. The ice caps are melting as we speak. We are talking massive, catastrophic, irreversible (in the lifetimes of us and the next few generations, at the very least) climate change. I don't doubt that Obama wants to address the problem, but we saw in September how Congress reacts when they believe a real crisis is at hand. So far, Obama is not demonstrating that level of urgency.
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That doesn't sound like a namby-pamby centrism to me.
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With all due respect, you are a namby-paby centrist and are positively gushing over the transition. I think that speaks for itself.

Thanks for your post, Joe, and for the link to Frank's column. I think Frank's column is more persuasive. (And I disagree, Andy from MA-- Joe is engaging in a debate. Sounds good to me! That's what the blogosphere is great at).
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Of course you're right, Joe, about the EITC, and about the fact that the Clinton years were way, way better than the Bush years for almost all Americans. But Frank doesn't say that Clinton accomplished nothing. He says that Clinton's determined centrism ("triangulation") ran into the immovable object that is GOP partisan implacability in the face of reason and experience. This seems irrefutable, and still true.
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From Frank's column (though really, everyone should read the whole thing):
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Centrism is something of a cult here in Washington, D.C., and a more specious superstition you never saw. Its adherents pretend to worship at the altar of the great American middle, but in fact they stick closely to a very particular view of events regardless of what the public says it wants. ...
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the real-world function of Beltway centrism has not been to wage high-minded war against "both extremes" but to fight specifically against the economic and foreign policies of liberalism. Centrism's institutional triumphs have been won mainly if not entirely within the Democratic Party. ...
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And centrism's achievements? Well, there's Nafta, which proved Democrats could stand up to labor. There's the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. There's the Iraq war resolution, approved by numerous Democrats in brave defiance of their party's left. Triumphs all.
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Histories of conservatism's rise, on the other hand, often emphasize that movement's adherence to principle regardless of changing public attitudes. Conservatives pressed laissez-faire through good times and bad, soldiering on even in years when suggesting that America was a "center-right nation" would have made one an instant laughingstock.
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And what happens when a strong-minded movement encounters a politician who acts as though the truth always lies halfway between his own followers and the other side? The dolorous annals of Clinton suggest an answer, in particular the chapters on Government Shutdown and Impeachment.

Furthermore, when recounting the Clinton era, Frank somehow misses the crucial work done on behalf of the working poor
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And don't forget all those that Clinton provided with 3 square meals and a bed...in prison.

But I agree with Elvis. Nobody is saying that Clinton's policies were all bad. Just that his political tactics sucked. He played defense for 8 years. He undermined and demoralized the grassroots of the party. And he failed to brand his policies on such a way that Gore and others could build electoral successes off of the policy successes.
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Plus, I never have and still don't measure Clinton against Bush I or Bush II. I measure him against what other Democrats (i.e. Gore, Bradley, Tsongas, Cuomo might have achieved given the same opportunities.

My $.02 –
We'd all be better off without the speculative condemnation OR praise of an administration yet to take office. I'm pretty sure Obama's intelligence and practicality will produce significant improvements in both foreign and domestic policy – hell, it would be hard NOT to improve on what he'll inherit. The real progress I hope to see, though, is in the tone of public discourse… an Era of At Least Somewhat Better Feeling. The combination of the generally positive Obama vibe and the current dire national straits could reduce the social acceptability of knee-jerk criticism, leading to the further self-marginalization of the Limbaughs and Coulters unable to exist in an atmosphere of reduced venom.
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That said, I can't see any benefit in prospective arguments about how Obama should move one way or the other in the ideological spectrum. Both Frank and Klein are engaged in Monday-morning quarterbacking before the game even begins, and all that can be said for either of them is that their free advice is worth the price.

Anyone who judges Obama before he even takes office deserves the title of "concern troll."
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"That doesn't sound like a namby-pamby centrism to me."
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Ok, I'm piling on, but it must be said: YOU ARE NAMBY PAMPY CENTRISTM'S ALL TIME HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION! Also the phrase is redundant. Centrism is the political philosophy of those who may be described as 'namby pamby'.
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Let us remember the words of Press Secretary designate Robert Gibbs:
“If Politico and Halperin say we're winning, we're losing,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/magazine/21Gibbs-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
...which could, of course, be applied to 99% of the pundit class.

Meanwhile, back at Tax Dodgers HQ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090114/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/treasury_nominee_analysis;_ylt=AtrxMHoFSQOMpvEHm6s0p1KWwvIE

Geithner, Holder, Richardson, Burris, Blago, Hillary.

Some change, that one.

Move On indeed.

BTW, when does the Global Freezing party begin, before or after POTUS-select Frozone gets sub'd by Blago's legal defense fund (to which all thinking Americans should give generously).

= HIPPIECRAPS ACCOMPLISHED =

Joe is lying again.
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Frank isn't saying Obama should avoid "anything associated with the Clinton presidency is toxic and that by associating himself with Clintonites, Barack Obama is in danger of becoming toxic, too."
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Frank is decrying the cult of centrism, saying that Democrats should act like Democrats, not like Joe Lieberman. Frank uses a few examples of Bill Clinton's centrist triangulations as obvious examples of mistakes Clinton made, along with more non-Clinton examples of foolish centrism preventing Democrats from getting stuff done right. Joe is taking Frank's more general argument and twisting it into an anti-Clinton argument, because then he can pretend that he isn't pissed off because it's an anti-Joe-Klein-cult-of-centrism argument.
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Frank is saying that Obama should avoid foolish centrism, and in this he is exactly correct. Democrats have won, and should govern like Democrats, not Republicans-light.
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Harry Truman always said that if you run a Republican against a Democrat who pretends he's a Republican, the real Republican will always win. Democrats are finally beginning to learn this truth; they shouldn't stop now.

And of course, as a member of the cult of centrism in good standing, Joe takes it all personally and just makes up shit here about what Frank is saying, hoping that nobody will go over to Frank's article and read what he actually is saying.

"...I'm pretty sure Obama's intelligence and practicality will produce significant improvements in both foreign and domestic..."

Yes, there's been nothing better for American security than articulate, obfuscating liberals in the White House and MisState Dept.

Unless you count WTC 1.

Or 444 Days.

Or Khobar Towers.

Or African Embassies.

Or Rwanda.

Or Waco.

Iran.

Afghanistan.

Saddam.

Taliban.

Indonesia.

North Korea.

Pakistan.

Pardons.

Peckerwood.

Oh my yes, legacy well done.

Elvis, we can agree to disagree. My point is that engaging in this "debate" we validate what Mr. Frank, and by logical extension, the WSJ and Mr. Murdoch are saying. I don't care to engage on that. Mr. Frank's words have no validity to me. It's like engaging with textee and hulagate.

Andy, Thomas Frank is the guy who wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?"! He's not Paul Gigot or Ralph Peters! See pourmecoffee's link above to get an idea of where he's coming from.

Link above seems to be frozen, so use this one. As I said, this is Joe Klein calling names to meanies week - Greenwald first, now Frank. Lame.

Elvis, thanks for pointing me to the link which I read with interest.

Coffee and Elvis, the way Joe reacts sometimes, you'd think someone called him an anti-semite. To paraphrase Richard Nixon, "Are you running for something Mr. Klein?"

Speaking of namby-pamby centrism and it's hold on the Joe's of the world: Now, Nancy Pelosi and fellow leaders surely get the most press. But when I compared the two ideologically disparate Dem factions -- the conservative-leaning Blue Dogs and the Progressive Caucus -- the numbers were staggering. In the past 90 days, the Blue Dogs were mentioned 933 times in national press coverage according to Lexis-Nexis. The progressives were cited just 99 times.

While many have praised Joe of late, me included, this post illustrates perfectly why Joe has gone after the neo cons lately. It's not about policy, Joe hasn't had some deep ephiphany...he's just trying to settle scores as he sees them. Ultimately, everything he writes is about him.

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FlownOver: We'd all be better off without the speculative condemnation OR praise of an administration yet to take office.
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What s(he) said. Talk about the offered policies, talk about who has been selected for which position and what that means, but don't torpedo or elevate someone who hasn't done anything yet.
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Having said that,
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JK: ...repeating his usual trope that anything associated with the Clinton presidency is toxic...
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I'm wondering if Joe linked to the correct column in the WSJ...I don't read that as an indictment of "anything associated with the Clinton presidency"...more of a criticism of taking a centrist view in order to be seen as impartial or responsive to all sides; not because the middle-of-the-road view is correct or sensible. The world is round and not flat, no matter what cranks may believe otherwise.
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Bellows' column is a cautionary note to Obama about governing from the center when he doesn't need to...from the column:

Centrism is a chump's game. Democrats have massive majorities these days not because they waffle hither and yon but because their historic principles have been vindicated by events.

And while "Obama is proposing a stimulus package--including a massive, job-creating government investment program" is nothing to sneeze at it's a proposal which hasn't traveled through Congress yet; it's yet to be stonewalled in the Senate and watered down to placate Right-whinge politicians.
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Right now, there's a real danger in wanting to appease the God of the Center; Partial, watered-down, Clintonesque solutions won't be enough to keep the gross negligence and maladministration of the Bush years from causing this country to fall further down the spiral.
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hulagate = QUESTIONHILLARY? Off your meds again, I see. Just sayin....

There seem to be (at least) two issues: how centrist was Bill Clinton's administration, and how centrist is Barack Obama's pre-administration.

Thomas Frank's article was correct in its assessment of how triangulation limited the Bill Clinton administration so much that the biggest success - and it was a success - had to be a tax cut.

I believe Joe Klein is right in saying that you can't call the Obama pre-administration centrist, but many of the positions he describes are not extremist liberal positions.

Near-universal health care is to the right of most, if not all, of his primary opponents, including Hillary Clinton. Reversing the Bush Administration's foreign policy, ending the war in Iraq, and attacking global warming are mainstream, centrist positions. The current package of $775 billion Barack Obama will only bring peak unemployment down from 9% in 2010 to 8% in 2009; that sounds namby-pamby to me, but hopefully the plan is also loosey-goosey.

(While they make sense to me, it seems that being willing to start talking with Iran and being willing to negotiate a global warming treaty are liberal positions.)

Shorter Klein: Thomas Frank, I banish you to the Sphere of Deviance.