atrios had another Deep Thought: Katie Couric wants me to weep for billionaires. And I will.
Every once in a while a cable teevee talking head gets something right. Matthews does here:
Joe Sudbay (DC): Oh my god. Obama has been president for 52 days now. Has he done enough? Is he doing too much? This 52 day milestone is just so critical, almost as important as the 50 day marker. I'm trying to imagine what cable news will do when he hits 55 days in office -- or 60. Seriously, the pundits and the talking heads become more bizarre -- and more useless -- by the hour.
Benen: WHAT DOES FINEMAN MEAN, 'US'?....
Newsweek's Howard Fineman believes President Obama may be facing "a turning tide" that will make his job more difficult. What kind of tide? According to Fineman, "the American establishment" -- his phrase, not mine -- isn't satisfied.Luckily for Obama, the public still likes and trusts him, at least judging by the latest polls, including NEWSWEEK's. But, in ways both large and small, what's left of the American establishment is taking his measure and, with surprising swiftness, they are finding him lacking. [...]
If the establishment still has power, it is a three-sided force, churning from inside the Beltway, from Manhattan-based media and from what remains of corporate America.... The American people remain on his side, but he has to be careful that the gathering judgment of the Bigs doesn't trickle down to the rest of us.
His column lists a dozen things "the establishment" would like to see Obama do. Some of the items on the wish list contradict each other, but if the president wants to please "the big shots" -- again, Fineman's phrase, not mine -- Obama should use this column as a to-do list. (It's tempting to go point by point through the whole list -- Jamison Foser has more patience than I do -- but rest assured, Fineman's dozen points are largely predictable and misleading.)
It's all terribly odd. The key takeaway from Fineman's column is the notion that the president is in a tough spot. Obama needs to shift his priorities because the American electorate likes what they see in their president, but Big Business, NYC media, and DC insiders "are finding him lacking."
And their collective disappointment might "trickle down to the rest of us," as if Fineman is on our side of the great establishment divide.
I can imagine a column in which a political observer urges a leader to worry less about the elite establishment and more about the opinions of the American mainstream. I never thought I'd see a column arguing the opposite.
- Whiskey Fire is a tad less polite than Steve: Howard Fineman: One of Us! One of Us!
Howard Fineman is a crazy person. Really!
This is an abysmally stupid column, but no more or less stupid than anything else Fineman has written before, or will inflict upon the world in the years to come. There is however a conceit to it that is instructive as to the virulent pathology of the elite media mindset.
... ... ...
Here's what really kills me. Fineman defines the Establishment thusly:
If the establishment still has power, it is a three-sided force, churning from inside the Beltway, from Manhattan-based media and from what remains of corporate America.Got that? And these are the forces arrayed against Obama. Now, look at how Fineman concludes:
The American people remain on his side, but he has to be careful that the gathering judgment of the Bigs doesn't trickle down to the rest of us."The rest of us"...?
"Us"?
Howard Fucking Fineman writing in Newsweek fucking magazine thinks he is "us" and not "The Bigs," the "establishment," totally not at home inside the Beltway, a stranger to Manhattan, far removed from corporate America?
These people are completely bananas. The reason they're so out of touch is they have no clue how insane they are.
A primal scream from atrios: LEAVE JPMORGAN ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE
Such absurd people, American elites.
- “When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said in his speech. “I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country.”
Dylan Matthews: MOVING THE 50-YARD LINE.
Rarely have I been as happy with a column I so thoroughly disagree with as I am with Ruth Marcus' piece today. Her central thesis - that Obama is somehow governing with a "moderate tilt" and not as an "unreconstructed liberal" - is pretty absurd on its face. We're barely two months into the new administration, and already a withdrawal from Iraq has been announced, an $800 billion stimulus package has been passed, S-CHIP has been expanded, stem cell restrictions have been lifted, and Guantanamo has been shut down. Say what you will about that, but it's a pretty solidly liberal policy agenda.
But by God, I hope writers like Marcus use their soapboxes to present it as centrist. They win, obviously; they, as paragons of the centrist DC establishment, are able to link themselves with a very popular president. Obama benefits as well, being able to credibly claim that he's forging a middle ground. But in the end, this sort of framing is good for progressivism. If a president whose first budget includes universal health care, a cap & trade system, and a massive increase in federal education spending qualifies as "moderate", then it's safe to say that the national political center is shifting strongly to the left, which can only be a good thing. Who knows, if this line of argument keeps up we might actually be able to have a robust debate as liberal about what kind of social democracy we want America to be, rather than defending the notion of social democracy itself.
Glenn Greenwald on The mission of the Beltway journalist.
... Thomas Jefferson, in a 1799 letter to Archibald Stewart, wrote: "Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light." And Jefferson later added:
Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.
With some important exceptions, our press corps does exactly the opposite of what Jefferson envisioned. Instead of "trusting to them for light," we have The Post's Richard Cohen demanding that political leaders be permitted to operate -- these were his words -- "with the lights off." And instead of wanting to "shut up the press" due to a "fear of investigations of their actions," political leaders now want to amplify and glorify the press as much as possible, since it's led by the likes of Ruth Marcus, David Ignatius and Stuart Taylor who are singularly devoted to blocking investigations -- not conducting them -- and ensuring that government wrongdoing remains concealed, not exposed. All you have to do is read what they say -- compare it to Jefferson's expectation of what the role of the press would be-- and see how twisted and corrupted our national media is.
In Newsweek today, Howard Fineman has one of the flimsiest and most inane -- yet highly revealing -- columns in some time. ...
...
Think Progress: Rep. Frank extracts media mea culpa from Andrea Mitchell: ‘We plead guilty’ to ‘gotcha’ journalism.
On MSNBC this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell asked Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) about Tom Friedman’s New York Times column today, in which he called it “insane” that “dozens of key appointments at the Treasury Department” are held up over minor infractions. Frank replied that “it’s a problem,” adding, however, that it was “a little self-serving” for the media to “blame that entirely on the Senate.” After Frank said that the media’s “over-focus” on minor infractions “is the problem here in part,” Mitchell conceded, saying “you’re right”:
FRANK: No, I mean the media is the problem here in part. It is the over-focus on the part of people in the media to relatively minor infractions that cause this. I guarantee you that my colleagues would not on their own be doing this. So, yeah, I do think we are in a culture now where a lack of perfection exacts too strong a toll. But that’s the politicians reacting to the media.
MITCHELL: I take your point. Mr. Frank, Mr. Chairman, you’re right. And we plead guilty because this culture right now of gotcha has gotten completely out of control.
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