Kevin Drum provides the punchline for my earlier post providing a rush transcript of Jonathan Alter's comments today on Franken's show. I was a bit rushed so I didn't have a chance to follow it up, but Kevin provided the point. Part of the reason I posted those comments was that they were things I would never imagine Alter writing in Newsweek. And, in fact, he hasn't.
There are two issues here - one is a certain hesitation to be overly critical of this administration when you think someone might be "looking." And, the second is the simple fact that straight journalists or centrist opinion columnists like Alter, when they do TV or radio, are highly influenced by the opinions of the people they're talking to. It's weird.
