Joe Klein Versus Michael Gerson: Round 1 to Gerson

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Have I missed something?

In our recent past, did Time magazine columnist Joe Klein take a swipe at Michael Gerson that cut the former Bush speechwriter to the quick?

Or was the devastating slash served upon Klein by Gerson in this morning's Washington Post the start of a new, juicy journalistic feud?

Illuminate me, readers.

I love Joe and his work and not so much Michael, who by all accounts is a reasonable and charitable Republican but has made his name promoting religious superstition in government. Nope. As a Jeffersonian, I don't like that much at all.

But I gotta give Gerson today's round.

Klein, you see, gets to waxing rhapsodically from time to time about Democrats, and Barack Obama's election has so inspired him.

"As the weeks have passed since the election, I've felt—as an urban creature myself—less restricted, less defensive. Empowered, almost," Joe wrote. "Is it possible that, as a nation, we're shedding our childlike, rural innocence and becoming more mature, urban, urbane . . . dare I say it, sophisticated?"

To which Gerson replies:

"Indeed. Is it possible for a pundit to be more like a college freshman who has just discovered the pleasures of wine, co-ed dorms and Nietzsche—shedding the primitivism of his parents and becoming, dare I say it, an annoying adolescent?"

Unless I've missed an earlier exchange, the score stands Gerson 1, Klein 0.

Back to you, Joe.

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