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TPM: Get that BS Fineman column off the blog roll
Dear editors:
It's been a while since I had a moment to write a full diary on this site. And although I don't have much more in the way of time today, I have enough impatience and frustration with the chicken-little narrative coursing through the panicky bloodstream of the liberal blogosphere and MSM to send off this little missive:
Get that load of tripe written by Newsweek's Howard Fineman off your headline scroll, or at least post a prominent rebuttal.
I'm talking about this: "Obama Health Care: What went wrong?"
I've been nearly at wit's end these past 72 hours, and actually the past two months, contending with gloom and doom prognostications from health care activists who feed on every exaggerated setback and phony bit of analysis from the shallow DC press. People like Fineman are decent journalists, but they are lemmings when it comes to doing any original or outside-the-beltway thinking.
Fineman is not like the Associated Press or ABC, which have been taking every opportunity to feed doubts about health care or demoralize the reform coalition, but his brand of thinking is not helpful right now.
The fact is that the health care bill is very much alive and the negotiations are in full motion. We can't pretend to know how this match will play out, but there are at least good odds that we will get a major bill signing.
And yet Howard Fineman comes in not just to opine about why health care failed, but how historians (!!!) will come to see the failure of the first year of Obama's presidency.
We're not even out of August. Jesus!
The problem right now is that the health care story, from a journalistic angle, is stuck on August 1, with no possible new news until September. What's a reporter on a deadline to do?
Well, he can start by feeding the frenzy of defeatism that will find a ready audience on the right, anxious for news of health care's demise, and on the left, in all out conniptions over their perceptions that Obama and the Democrats have sold them out.
Oh, the drama.
We can help this quagmire by lending a little assistance to the narrative and giving the elite readers of this blog a little perspective--or at least remind them of the bigger picture before they go writing such garbage in an attempt to fill copy space.
So for now, I respectfully ask again: get that column off this site or at least post a vigorous rebuttal.
It's been a while since I had a moment to write a full diary on this site. And although I don't have much more in the way of time today, I have enough impatience and frustration with the chicken-little narrative coursing through the panicky bloodstream of the liberal blogosphere and MSM to send off this little missive:
Get that load of tripe written by Newsweek's Howard Fineman off your headline scroll, or at least post a prominent rebuttal.
I'm talking about this: "Obama Health Care: What went wrong?"
I've been nearly at wit's end these past 72 hours, and actually the past two months, contending with gloom and doom prognostications from health care activists who feed on every exaggerated setback and phony bit of analysis from the shallow DC press. People like Fineman are decent journalists, but they are lemmings when it comes to doing any original or outside-the-beltway thinking.
Fineman is not like the Associated Press or ABC, which have been taking every opportunity to feed doubts about health care or demoralize the reform coalition, but his brand of thinking is not helpful right now.
The fact is that the health care bill is very much alive and the negotiations are in full motion. We can't pretend to know how this match will play out, but there are at least good odds that we will get a major bill signing.
And yet Howard Fineman comes in not just to opine about why health care failed, but how historians (!!!) will come to see the failure of the first year of Obama's presidency.
We're not even out of August. Jesus!
The problem right now is that the health care story, from a journalistic angle, is stuck on August 1, with no possible new news until September. What's a reporter on a deadline to do?
Well, he can start by feeding the frenzy of defeatism that will find a ready audience on the right, anxious for news of health care's demise, and on the left, in all out conniptions over their perceptions that Obama and the Democrats have sold them out.
Oh, the drama.
We can help this quagmire by lending a little assistance to the narrative and giving the elite readers of this blog a little perspective--or at least remind them of the bigger picture before they go writing such garbage in an attempt to fill copy space.
So for now, I respectfully ask again: get that column off this site or at least post a vigorous rebuttal.
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Thanks for calming the waters, bacon. John Aravosis at americablog said that Kathleen Sebelius is already walking back her trial balloon, or whatever it was, back. And the Progressive Caucus is sticking to their guns (oops, bad choice of words these days.)
The beltway folks are covering a horserace 24 hours a day; it's a pity howseparate they are from the world we all live in.
August 18, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is a pity, less for how they want to cover a negotiation like a horse race, but more for the fact that they want to impose the narrative of the horse race on the rest of us news consumers who genuinely want to understand what's happening.
Where does one go for information? I used to say the blogosphere, but these outlets have been no better as of late.
My recommendations are Ezra Klein at the WaPo and Jon Cohn at TNR.
August 18, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Digging through the bunk?
Here one source that may be helpful:
You just about need a shovel . . .
~OGD~
August 19, 2009 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I saw the article, but didn't even read it...this defeatist attitude is just NOT going to cut it...the war is not yet lost, so get your butts back in there and continue the fight!!!
August 18, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hear, hear. It's an amazing spectacle when smart people like Fineman display that kind of thinking, isn't it?
August 18, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd love to see Obama and the other elected "democrats" do the same.
August 19, 2009 3:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amen to everyone above.
August 18, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen to that Amen.
August 18, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am also in favor of all media using more scrutiny in their use of headlines and what they will be promoting in the way they 'present' a story and the headline they choose to use.
August 19, 2009 1:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
What gets me is . . .
. . . that the link feeds to MSNBC and the staff here placed it in the TPMVoices blog roll.
Gee ... I guess it has something to do with the contract Fineman has with the corporate over there and copyright and all that...
Happy horse crap . . .
~OGD~
August 19, 2009 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I came back to post the same thing. To steal a line from Barney Frank, "On What Planet is Howard Fineman a TPM Voice? Maybe everyone in management took August off. Or maybe they don't care what those of us who can legitimately claim a voice around here think.
August 19, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you think they call him "Howie?" Good post.
August 19, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Between Kurtz and Fineman, I'm beginning to think anybody named Howie is an idiot. Good post!
August 19, 2009 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, everyone, for the kind words.
I've believed that TPM serves three vital roles: chase the stories no one else is following; do the reporting that the MSM is increasing incapable of doing; and correct the overreactions of the political press and cable news.
A few times during the Obama administration, I think they've aided the overreactions instead of tempering them, and I think the health care debate has been one of them.
Maybe we're still getting our sea legs now that we're in power.
August 19, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
This "story" has replaced the birther madness and will do so until the next big obsession breaks.
August 19, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
And yet Howard Fineman comes in not just to opine about why health care failed, but how historians (!!!) will come to see the failure of the first year of Obama's presidency.
We're not even out of August. Jesus!
The "Failed Obama Presidency" was always going to be the narrative, no matter what.
With health care reform, he's trying to do something that every Democratic president since FDR has been trying, and failing, to get done, and people don't understand why he doesn't just wave his magic wand and fix everything. The media elites feed into this, even though they know that the legislative process is a slog, and this kind of a massive overhaul wasn't going to get done in the "first 100 days" or whatever other bullshit metric they use to determine the success or failure of a presidency.
Fineman doing a post-mortem on a "failure" that hasn't taken place yet is absurd, but typical of the beltway insider mindset. I agree, it should be taken down.
August 19, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
When Roosevelt was president he had majorities of his own party in the Senate of 59-36(1933-35), 69-25 (1935-37) and 75-17 (1937-39). In the House it was 313-117, 322-103, 333-89 for the same periods.
Johnson had majorities in the Senate of 67-33 (1963-65), 68-32 (1965-67) and 64-36 (1967-69) and in the House: 258-176, 295-140, 248-187.
August 19, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do you get your own supporters out there enthusiastically working for you? Give them something that they can enthusiastically support.
If you can't do that, get them outraged about something.
Obama did not support single payer so now he is trailing hints that the public option will be dropped.
Deliberately? Maybe, maybe not. Obama has always stated his plans in terms of goals not means. His insistence that the HCR further competition has not wavered from the beginning but his commitment to the public option seems to be writ on sand. The problem is that none of the proposed alternatives so far seem to do more than enrich the health insurance companies further.
August 19, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
fbacon: Thanks for getting on TPM's back about this. Where the heck are they when we need them? Huff Post is finally getting onto an angle that doesn't involve the "shootists" at the OK Town Hall. We need some objective reporting here and calling game over in the first inning is about as politically and journalistically underhanded as you can get.
August 19, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
overall Fineman rates as one of the decent guys and several points he makes are right on.
yet, what is most telling is how he fails to point out the role the media has in all this.
these lies the republicans use and the way they just make things up never are challenged and we have fox actually perpetuating them along with talk radio 24 hours a day.
so while the level of stupidity on the other side is shocking, the main issue with any debate will always be the failure of the media to do their one job; bringing the truth to the american people.
August 19, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, but, unfortunately, the one job of much of the main stream media is to improve the corporate bottom line.
August 19, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink