I wonder if really elite pundits like Joe Klein ever feel weird about writing that something might look bad even though it makes sense on the merits. After all, Klein has a substantial ability to affect how things are perceived. He notes that “Just because [liberals are] right about Iraq, and about this escalation, it doesn’t mean they won’t be blamed by the public if the result of an American withdrawal is lethal chaos in the region and $200 per barrel oil” which is true. On the other hand, if American withdraws and Joe Klein and other similarly situated people all focus their energy on placing the blame where it belongs — on the war’s architects — then the odds are pretty good that liberals won’t be blamed.

The Note’s “Gang of 500″ business is a joke, but only sort of. A rather small number of writers, producers, and editors for ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and the Associated Press substantially determine how things will be play in the press. If those people decide that doing something will “look weak” and then cover it as if it does “look weak” it then will, in fact, look weak. If they determine the reverse, the reverse will probably happen.

Dave Weigel sticks up for Joe McCarthy who was “was (in his mind, at least) protecting American tradition, religion, and capitalism against the threat of Communism, which if implemented would abolish all of that. Hannity, like far too many Fox News pundits and radio hosts, are protecting George W. Bush against criticism from, well, everyone, from Pat Buchanan and Justin Raimondo to Cindy Sheehan and Dennis Kucinich.” I think there’s something to that. Fox News, in particular, seems much more invested in the greater glory of George W. Bush than in anything even resembling a set of ideas.

If I may pile on a bit late, the truly odd thing about Sean Hannity’s “Enemy of the State” feature is the specific locution — state — which is so deeply at odds with the quasi-populist tradition of the American right. Not enemy of the nation, enemy of the country, enemy of the people, enemy of America, but enemy of the state. The particular blend of authoritarianism and anti-statism that’s typical of American conservatism from Tailgunner Joe to Liberality for All is incoherent, but at least it gives crypto-fascists the comfort of staying crypto.

Hannity by contrast has simply lost it. On the most obvious level, he seems confused about the fact that he’s not an agent of the state and has no business proclaiming who the state’s enemies are. Yes, the Pravda-like qualities of Fox News and the ease with which one can go from being an unofficial spokesman for George W. Bush at Fox to being an official spokesman for him in the West Wing may induce confusion, but surely Hannity is aware on some level that he’s not a government employee. The episode reaches its bizarre peak when Hannity issues the demagogue’s standard disclaimer — “[Sean] Penn can say whatever he wants” — such a cliché that Hannity must be honestly unaware of how nonsensical such a disclaimer is when branded with a chiron branding the speaker an enemy of the state for his words.

Then Hannity states, oddly, that Penn “speaks only for himself and other bad actors” when expressing the sentiment that Hannity is a “whore” and the Bush administration personnel “bastards.” That’s crazy. Lots of people, including your humble blogger, think Hannity is a bastard and that Bush’s key aides are bastards. The Stalinist aesthetics here, moreover, are absurd. Since when is Penn a bad actor? Since he began expressing political views conservatives don’t like? Give me a break.