A Victory for Socialism? TIME Magazine's Joe Klein Says He Was Merely Mocking 'Radical Republicans

Yesterday, TIME Magazine's Joe Klein sent heads spinning when he said that the NY-26 Democratic triumph was "a victory for socialism." According to RCP, he also said:

"For the last two years, Republicans have been lambasting Barack Obama who is right in the middle of the political spectrum, a mild liberal, as being a wild-eyed socialist. Well, there ain't anything that he has proposed that is purely socialistic as our Medicare program; a single payer program run by the government. And the folks love it."

Watch Klein's controversial statements on MSNBC below:

Today, on TIME.com, Klein clarified his statement and explained that he was merely mocking "radical Republicans" when he quipped about socialism:

My tongue was planted firmly in cheek–I was mocking the radical Republican tendency to pin the S-word on anything that involves government participation…and Medicare does happen to be a single-payer government health care program, a “public option,” as it were, for seniors. I made that clear in subsequent comments. This morning, Drudge is featuring my remark…unironically, of course. Can Rush and Beck be far behind? Of course not.

You can read the rest of Klein's explanation here.