Mr. Faith-Based's Sordid (Recent) Past.

As G. would probably agree, it's nice that whatever parasite fed off Joe Klein's cerebral cortex for the first six years of the Bush administration is now, presumably, gone. But the sad fact is that Klein was unforgivably late to the party. Let's not forget that the following exchange with Hugh Hewitt is from April of 2006:

JK: No, no. Hugh, in the past year, I've stood for the following things. I've taken the following positions. I agreed with the President on social security reform. I supported his two Supreme Court nominees, and I support, even though I opposed this war, I support staying the course in Iraq, and doing whatever we have to do in order to stabilize the region.

HH: All right. There are two critical aspects...

JK: So where do you put me on the spectrum?

HH: I'm going to put you as an old liberal with some hope of coming around.

JK: You know, I keep on getting hammered by the left.

HH: Oh, I know, but they're crazy now, Joe, as you write in this book. That's what's so wonderful about it. Your descriptions of the Democratic Party made me chuckle. It's lost. It's off the cliff.

JK: It made me cry.

[...]

JK: Well, you know, I also run in the kind of faith based circle. In fact, one of Bush's nicknames for me is Mr. Faith Based.

HH: Well, that's good.

JK: And at the very end of the book, I acknowledge Bill Bennett as giving the best advice on how to judge a presidential candidate.

HH: At a Christian Coalition meeting. Yeah, it's a great anecdote.

JK: And Bill's a good friend of mine. But I've kind of got to give these guys cover. You don't want to be praised by what you call a traditional liberal, do you?

[...]

JK: But can I just say this about the President? You were saying this before the break. Let me say that of all the major politicians I've covered in presidential politics in the last two or three times around, he is the most likely to stick with an issue, even if the polls are bad, and to govern from the gut as you said. I don't always agree with the decisions that he makes, but I think he is an honorable man, and when I've criticized him, I've tried to criticize him on the substance, and certainly not on his personality, because I really like the guy.

It's true that in June of '07, Klein appeared to cut his ties with Hewitt, but this was less of a divorce than a trial separation. Earlier this year, Klein again took to the airwaves, and the results were nothing short of pathetic:

HH: The gay and lesbian community up in arms over his relationship with James Meeks, who is very, in the words that they use, very homophobic. Does that sort of an attack from a traditional Democratic interest group bother you?

JK: No. I mean, really, I’ll tell you, bother me? I mean, the things I’m interested in are the big ones. I’m interested in foreign policy, national security, an alternative energy plan, the economy, those sort of things.

HH: Gay rights don’t matter?

JK: …And on those issues. That’s where I think that this campaign can go. You know, Hugh, we have a big choice this year.

HH: But do gay rights matter, Joe?

JK: No, I mean, I don’t think that they matter nearly as much as this other stuff.

Charming.