I had missed this post at the Corner by Rich Lowry: "Joe Klein counsels White House restraint on Fox, but isn't the White House already restraining itself in not prosecuting Fox's sedition? Klein at one point says Fox 'borders on sedition,' but apparently its lies actually are 'seditious.' And Klein uses these words after stipulating that he's going to be 'precise.' Can someone tell me why the self-styled high-minded defenders of civil discourse in this country so often resort to such bilious nonsense?"

Peter Wehner at Commentary's Contentions blog and (to a lesser extent) at NRO's The Corner blog has expended just about all the ones and zeroes that is necessary in exposing Joe Klein as a hack's hack for well over a year. I think the Power Line guys have also done some work on Klein's dishonesty, hackery and all-around bad-faith prose. Google some search terms, I'm sure it will pop up.

I find it almost funny, though, that Klein uses a nuclear missile term — SEDITION! — to make a point that requires a nerf ball. Some on the right, including Andy McCarthy at NRO, suggested that it was borderline seditious for The New York Times and Washington Post to expose state secrets in the form of war-fighting tools — such as the terrorist wiretaps, and the CIA "black sites," and the program to choke al-Qaida of its funding (the latter of which had not the whiff of civil liberties trouble) — while we were still fighting the war. The financial strategy exposure had arguably zero news value, and resulted in the end of a very effective anti-war program — the kind of "soft" strategy liberals are supposed to applaud.

Putting aside whether the cases above qualify as "sedition" (we're not gonna re-fight those battles here), non-Moonbats at least understand that the term "sedition" carries with it the context of undermining efforts by the United States to successfully fight a war against an enemy that wishes to destroy this country. (I'm sure there are historical exceptions to my presumption that Ben, a greater expert on such matters than this monkey, will note.)

But what has stirred Klein to use this word, usually reserved to apply to genuine enemies of the nation? Fox News airs programming — virtually alone — that is critical of the Obama administration's liberal domestic agenda. Specifically, he appears to be accusing Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck of sedition. The worst I've heard them say is call the likes of Van Jones a commie (which is how Jones described himself), call ACORN a hard-left criminal enterprise (which it is), draw attention to Anita Dunn's affection for Mao (which seems genuine) ... and state that they believe Obama (who has marinated his entire adult life with radical Marxists from academia) is not the centrist the likes of Joe Klein told us he was, but a ... well ... socialist or Marxist, take your pick.

Cannot Klein and the rest of his liberal media establishment travelers disagree with this assessment — condemn it, even — without accusing Hannity and Beck of sedition, of being an enemy of this country? Apparently not. Yet it's the right that is full of "wingnuts," writes Klein. And, just on a pure political analysis point, this bit by Klein is just precious:

The best antidote to their garbage is elegant, intelligent governance.

The Obama team has not shown much "elegance" or skill for "intelligent governance" over its first 10 months. Instead, the White House has idiotically wholly handed over to Congress major legislative initiatives twice — the stimulus and health care — and has ended up with one unpopular boondoggle and a fledging unpopular disaster of a bill. That's quite the display of incompetence when you have full control of each house of Congress, members willing to do your specific bidding if asked/cajoled, and an electoral wind at your back. And at every turn, the White House has responded to even the slightest criticism with childishness and thuggish Chicago-style tactics.

Compare that to that dolt Bush, who got a major education bill passed with Ted Kennedy (of all people) and had the even, confident temperament to shrug off an adversarial press 100 times more critical of his agenda. (One of my favorite Bush stories was when he was in the limo driving past an exceptionally nasty protester and said to the shocked "civilian" riding along with him: "Not a fan.")

Klein also wrote this in that Time blog post:

The problem with war is that it diverts attention from the actual news.

Aha! Now we get to why Klein used the word "sedition." Forget the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama's problem is that his "war" with Fox News is distracting him from pushing the news cycle even more in his favor. Good grief.