When a Lib "Journalist" Has a Chance Meeting

[onmyknees]

Well here's one of your own....certainy his bona fides are evident. Regular suck up of Tingles and Butch Maddow on MSNBC lapping up all thier bilge, and Editorial Chief at the Huff and Puff Post. What more could a lib ask for? He's one of your chief cheerleaders.

The irony of this is Fineman asks the rhetorical questions about "reporters" and himself is the biggest offender. Part of him is obviously embarrassed that he's spent the past 5 years of his professional life on his kness, and carrying Barry's stagnent water, but this is more his way of providing himself cover for his own corruption. He's full of shit because tomorrow when he sits down next to Tingles at 5 pm, look closely and you'll see his lips are still wet.

But as least for 30 mintes out of his sycophantic existance he exhibits a tiny bit of integrity, but as Mickey Klaus said..."At least fake fairness is better than no fairness at all " What a joke.

Howard Fineman

Editorial Director, Huffington Post Media Group



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Barack Obama Floating Like A Butterfly: Countdown Day 43



WASHINGTON -- In his Senate office, Barack Obama gave pride of place to a famous sports photo: Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay back then) howling in triumph over the dazed hulk of Sonny Liston, belly-up on the canvas.
Like his boxing hero Ali, Obama is floating like a butterfly -- essentially untouched -- thus far in his presidential prizefight with Mitt Romney.
And that is not good for anybody: for the country, for the voters, for the political parties or even for Obama and his administration.
If American democracy is to work -- if we are to prevent the blood from clotting in the body politic -- presidential elections must be real contests over real ideas and real records, informed by real facts.

This campaign hasn't really been any of those things.
Presidents do not deserve to be reelected by default. If they did, why would anyone expect that a second term to be any better or wiser?
And elected leaders need to be held to account -- pinned up against the wall, so to speak -- if citizens aren't to become utterly disillusioned with the idea that we live in a system of democratic self-government.

On the surface, it is ridiculous to say that a president whose foes have dumped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads on his head is "untouched."

It also is ridiculous to say that a president who has been hit with non-stop ridicule, contempt and even xenophobic hatred from some precincts of the Republican/conservative opposition is "untouched."
But that is the truth.
Look at the numbers. A year ago, the president's job approval rating was an abysmal 42.1 percent, his disapproval rating at 51.3. Today, his approval rating is 50 percent, his disapproval 46.3 -- an upward swing of more than 12 points.

A year ago, voters' view of the future could hardly have been bleaker. By a margin of 76.8 percent to 16.8 percent, they thought the country was "off on the wrong track" rather than "headed in the right direction." Voters are hardly popping champagne corks today, but that yawning negative spread of 60 percentage points has closed to 17 percentage points (55.3 percent to 38.5 percent).
And of course the president is well ahead on the Electoral College trends.
He has managed to do all of this without having to seriously and substantively defend his first-term failed promises or shortcomings, and without having to say much, if anything. about what, if anything, he might do substantially differently if he is fortunate enough to win again.
Unless I missed it, the president has yet to give a detailed answer to why he has failed to meet or even come close to his promises about reducing the unemployment rate. Saying that the task was harder than he initially thought isn't (or shouldn't be) a convincing explanation.
He hasn't given a detailed answer as to why he and his top advisers, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, failed to focus sufficiently on reviving the housing market, rather than just bailing out banks.
He hasn't explained why his own administration is now saying that at least 6 million Americans, most of them in the middle class, will indeed face a tax increase (penalty) in 2014 if they do not buy health insurance -- a new estimate substantially higher than earlier ones.
He hasn't explained whether he shares any blame for the failure of budget talks on a grand compromise. And if the art of presidential leadership is to cajole your foes into doing deals they don't want to do, what are we to make of his famous charming effectiveness?
He hasn't given a detailed defense of the vast expansion of the security state under his watch -- a policy that, in effect, has doubled down on the global war on terror-based approaches that his predecessor, President George W. Bush, initiated.

He hasn't given a detailed explanation for why he didn't close Guantanamo, as he had promised he would.
He hasn't said how, even with a Simpson-Bowles-style budget deal, the country is going to seriously grapple with long-term unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions.
I could go on.
But the real question is why has he been able to butterfly along thus far?

Let me answer that Howard...Partly Because Hacks like you have shed your adversarial skin, picked up your hope and change posters and became advocates.

[onmyknees]

And this just in from another lib sage, MARCO MOULITSAS:

"Yeah, but you know, this being a moving under the money issue, like everybody else I was worried about Citizens United and the flood of unregulated big dollars in politics. But we have seen, not just in the presidential where you can say, well, Romney's not likeable, but in how in Senate races also, you have these Senate candidates, Democrats are being pounded by tens of millions of dollars and the numbers really haven't really taken a hit.

This is one of the big stories of this election, just how little effect this money is. And it may be DVRs (allowing viewers to skip ads), it may be the fact that people are watching more content online or they've just gotten really good at ignoring those stupid attack ads with the grainy film and the stupid music. Everybody's just deciding this is all BS, I'm going to ignore it. But the fact is, as worried as we may have been about that money, it's just not having an effect! And so when they say, well, if we're going to have money we're going to nuke Obama the last six weeks of the race, they've been nuking him the last six months and that nuking really hasn't done anything except damage Romney further."

Remember when you all ( shall I name names?) along with Marcos and every other hysterical lib blogger told us Citizen's United was the end of our demcracy? Now? No Big Deal.

If this wasn't the future of our country, you fools would be providing more humor than I could stand.

[Prospero]

The drowning man surfaces again, gulping for air,clutching at straws, trying to make sense of it all.

[hippifried]

The drowning man surfaces again, ... trying to make sense of it all.

No he's not.

[Prospero]

Ahhh.... here OMK get all his info....

[robertlouis]

Deep sighs. When I saw the original post from omk last night and the several hours that passed without further comment I was hoping that there was finally a consensus that the best way to deal with this insidious troll was simply to ignore him. I see that some of you couldn't resist the temptation - understandable, because it required refutation, but a shame nevertheless.

Look at it this way. You might take a peek from time to time at the inflammatory lies and spin emanating from Fox News, but nobody's actively forcing you to do so and your life will be richer and less annoying if you do switch over. So why indulge Fox's favourite cut and paste merchant when he comes on HA???? You know that he's never, ever going to answer a straightforward question. Why waste your time?

You know it makes sense.