« Facial Coding Of The 3rd Presidential Debate
No More PUMAs? »

Joe Klein Banned From McCain Plane?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, McCain, Media

My, how things have changed…

Time columnist Joe Klein, who’s been a forceful critic of the McCain campaign (and already said he’s unwilling to accept a post-election apology), has found himself without a seat on the McCain or Palin planes the past four months.

In June, Klein was kept from boarding the McCain plane over what they said had been a security issue. More recently, when trying to fly on the Palin plane last week, Klein told Politico over e-mail that the campaign’s response was he “couldn’t be accommodated at this time.”

“I’ve done nine presidential campaigns and this is the first time this has ever happened to me,” Klein said. “I was even allowed—I won’t say welcomed—on the Clinton plane in the summer of 1996 after I was revealed as the author of Primary Colors.”

Also having problems getting on McCain’s planes? Maureen Dowd, and TIME’s Jay Carney and…Mark Halperin? The same Mark Halperin who was essentially saying that McCain had a better shot of winning before the economic crisis hit?

Weird.

Sorry, I read the above wrong. Just Maureen Dowd is banned.


This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, McCain, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Joe Klein Banned From McCain Plane?”

  1. Zimmerman Says:
    October 21st, 2008 at 9:24 am

    You’ve got that wrong:

    Similarly, other Time magazine staffers, including Washington bureau chief Jay Carney, ” reporter Michael Scherer, and Mark Halperin (The Page), have not had a problem with access.

    Note the NOT

  2. kranky kritter Says:
    October 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am

    The basic argument for why Klein “should” be let on the plane is tradition, right? I mean, there’s no fundamental reason why the campaigns should fund the media’s transportation, right? And if there are a fixed number of seats and more asses than seats, it makes sense to prefer people on your side first, neutrals next, and foes last, right?

    I fully support Klein’s right to free speech and his right to access as a prominent member of the media. But I don’t think John McCain should be expected to subsidize the efforts of his most vocal critics unless he feels like it.

    So, suppose we asked McCain or whoever else decided why Klein didn’t get a ride. Suppose further that John McCain’s honest answer was “because F*ck him, that’s why.” I have no problem with that.

Leave a Reply


NOTE TO COMMENTERS:


You must ALWAYS fill in the two word CAPTCHA below to submit a comment. And if this is your first time commenting on Donklephant, it will be held in a moderation queue for approval. Please don't resubmit the same comment a couple times. We'll get around to moderating it soon enough.


Also, sometimes even if you've commented before, it may still get placed in a moderation queue and/or sent to the spam folder. If it's just in moderation queue, it'll be published, but it may be deleted if it lands in the spam folder. My apologies if this happens but there are some keywords that push it into the spam folder.


One last note, we will not tolerate comments that disparage people based on age, sex, handicap, race, color, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry. We reserve the right to delete these comments and ban the people who make them from ever commenting here again.


Thanks for understanding and have a pleasurable commenting experience.


Related Posts: