OH, HE DIDN'T SAY IT, DID HE? - AT 6:43 A.M. ET:  We give the Pompous Fool Award periodically at the Angel's Corner to a writer or politician who has distinguished himself or herself in pomposity and foolishness.  Maybe we should add a Poor Taste Award.  The first recipient would have to be the terminally obnoxious Joe Klein, a man whose limitations are legendary.  Klein is quoted in an otherwise fair-minded piece about the brilliant Charles Krauthammer, who has emerged as one of the most important conservative voices in our time.

Klein has to get his two cents in.  He actually said this about Krauthammer:

"He became Ground Zero among the neo-cons, but he's vastly smarter than most of them," said Time's Joe Klein, an admirer and critic who praised Krauthammer's "writing skills and polemical skills" as "so far above almost anybody writing columns today."

"There's something tragic about him too," Klein said, referring to Krauthammer's confinement to a wheelchair, the result of a diving accident during his first year of medical school. "His work would have a lot more nuance if he were able to see the situations he's writing about."

Krauthammer appropriately replied, "My writing speaks for itself."

COMMENT:  If Rush had said that about anyone, the skies would have fallen, and smelling salts would have been delivered to the entire White House press corps.  But since the very liberal Joe Klein said it, I suspect it will go ignored among the pundit classes.

May 20, 2009