Howard Fineman on Imus-in-the-Morning 3-27-03

Ah Howard Fineman, Newsweek's most dependable solon...the man is my very meat I tell you.
And today he sounded dispirited...why he could barely summon up the energy to shill for President Bush.
It's a hard life indeed for those pundits who selflessly consign themselves to the rear with the gear so that the whole war can be properly explained and supported preferably via $20,000.00 personal appearances.
The war in some ways is not going well according to Fineman, we were supposed to be greeted by smiling Iraqi faces and instead the Fedayeen guerillas are gunning for us.
Howard puts on a helpless "how could we have known" tone but then hasn't Saddam be promising traditional guerilla warfare for years now? Indeed threatening all out guerilla warfare has been a staple of every regional tyrant's rhetoric for over fifty years now going back to the salad days of Gamal Nasser. Given the low operational readiness of his war machine arming his flunkies and calling them freedom fighters about all Hussein can do...you would think someone at Newsweek would keep Fineman up to date on this things.
Fineman also claims no one in the Pentagon took into account the possibility of guerilla warfare, this is sheer nonsense. What Howars means is, in the rush to make this war look easy-peasy nobody in the DC punditariat opted to explore the notion in any detail.
No Fineman sighed shifted and admitted we've "lost the propaganda war" and also misplaced "the moral high ground" during this conflict. Now on the surface these are damning admissions, but notice how the Newsweek columnist does not and indeed cannot link our diplomatic isolation to the President and his decisions?
Nope Howard merely mutters about "over confidence at the Pentagon" without mentioning any names and leaves it at that.
This is a line taken by more and more serious conservative apologists in the media as the war looks less and less like cakewalk. Jeff Greenfield and Howard Fineman will outline the political problems in detail and then notably refuse to link any of these pathologies to President Bush, his ideology, decisions, or leadership style.
Buried deep in this approach is a basic refusal to question the President's sincerity...until someone gets over this, it is a malign dichotomy we will have to live with.
No if we are having problems then it's the fault of 24 hour cable news coverage, the same networks that pay hard cash for the services of these selfsame pundits.
Howard then roused himself a bit to dump on the perfidious Turks for refusing to allow our troops free transit to the Northern Front. Again left unsaid is Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's harsh and heavy handed treatment of the Turkish Government in the run up to this war. Hell, I don't know much but if we don't have the Turks on our side, we've GOT to be doing something wrong....they are even more pro-American than the Shreveport Louisiana Rotary Club.
Fineman's solution to the current diplomatic feud with Ankara is to cut Turkey out of the current foreign aid package being debated in congress...geez these DC hammerheads sure do get spiteful when the going gets a little tough don't they?
Which is when Fineman wrapped himself in the flag like a funeral shroud and abruptly announced "Saddam thinks democracy is a weakness, but democracy is in fact our strength"...
Just as long as we make sure democracy is properly guided by a nice reliable man like you Howard....
And yet despite Presidential prevarication, overconfidence, diplomatic isolation, stupidity and arrogance...all of which goes unreported every day Howard can still blurt out ; "I'm proud of the American media!"
Frankly nothing more need be said that sums this was his ultimate peroration and possibly our epitaph.
Sick
Demented
Typical...