Glenn Greenwald has been following Time Magazine's Joe Klein and his increasingly bizarre (and demonstrably false) assertions on FISA and the Democratic majority.

Salon (watch ad for site pass):

Joe Klein has just posted yet again about his FISA confusion, and it has now moved well beyond farce into an almost pity-inducing realm. If Time has any dignity at all, someone there will intervene and put a stop to this. It's actually difficult to watch.

In the last five days alone, Klein has now written five separate times about his FISA debacle, and is further away than ever from having any idea what he's even talking about -- first was the column itself; second was the Swampland post the same day in which he emphatically defended the accuracy of what he wrote in response to my post; third was the post yesterday in which Klein said he "may have made a mistake in [his] column this week about the FISA legislation" -- the understatement of the year; fourth was an Update he added to that post this morning claiming that he did speak to a Democrat but "may have misinterpreted a Democratic source's point" and "if [he] did, a correction will appear in the print magazine next week"; and now, his fifth effort in tonight's post, actually worse than all the others, in which he still professes confusion after "spen[ding] the past few days nosing around in the ongoing dispute about what the House FISA Reform bill actually says."

The result of all this "nosing around": "I've reached no conclusions." And he then unleashes this:

I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right.

Yeah, Joe. God forbid you do some research before smearing a political party falsely. But wait, there's more. FDL's Jane Hamsher then wanted to check which editor at Time let untrue and unresearched assertions go out under Time's flagship banner multiple times, and guess what the editor's response was?

I finally confirmed that the editor was Priscilla Painton, and called her and identified myself. I asked her what the editing process was, and how a piece with so many errors made it into print.

"That assumes that there are errors," she said. And hung up on me.

Nice. And not the first time that Painton has had this response. Rep. Rush Holt thinks that Time and Joe Klein got some 'splaining to do.

So again, the question must be asked: why would anyone give any credibility to Joe Klein or Time Magazine when reporting factual and researched stories are so patently unimportant to them?

UPDATE: Glenn has more...