The 'Bam Who Fell To Earth

Back in July I described the positively celestial coverage that Newsweek had bestowed upon The Won, and wrote:

Last month, Evan Thomas declared [Obama] “standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.” This week, as Ed Morrissey paraphrases with gusto, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend writes, “You know who’d make a great Pope?”

The parody Newsweek cover that National Review’s art department designed last month (and reproduced at left) is looking, if anything, understated these days. Obama’s no longer “Better than FDR”, he’s positively papal. I didn’t know Obama was Catholic; As someone who placed himself on styrofoam Olympus last year, I assumed he transcended earthly religious castes.

Like Icarus though, Obama has crashed and burned in at least one Newsweek journalist’s eyes. Spotting a story by Howard Fineman titled, “The Limits of Charisma: Mr. President, Please Stay Off TV”, Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters writes:

How do you know when an extraordinarily liberal politician is failing badly?

When extraordinarily liberal journalists like Newsweek’s Howard Fineman not only notice, but are willing to write about it AND get their critique’s published.

Adding insult to injury, in Fineman’s most recent column, he expressed concern that “[u]nless Obama learns to rely less on charm, rhetoric, and good intentions and more on picking his spots and winning in political combat, he’s not going to be reelected.”

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To be sure, losing Howard Fineman is not anywhere near as serious for Obama as losing Walter Cronkite was for Lyndon Johnson.

However, with each passing week, more and more liberal journalists are realizing what those that didn’t drink Obama’s Kool Aid knew when he first threw his hat into the ring in 2007: this is a completely inexperienced politician with absolutely no track record of legislative success.

As Fineman noted, “Never much of a legislator (and not long a -senator), Obama underestimated the complexity of enacting a major “reform” bill.”

Hey Howard: where were you when candidate Obama’s detractors were pointing out his astounding lack of legislative accomplishments and just how green he was as a senator?

Oh, that’s right — you were aiding and abetting his White House run by not bothering to report such insignificant details.

Nice of you to tell your readers now almost eleven months AFTER Election Day; you and your editors should be so proud of your journalistic expertise.

As the Professor likes to ask, who were the rubes? Or as one journalist noted a few years ago:

A political party is dying before our eyes — and I don’t mean the Democrats. I’m talking about the “mainstream media,” which is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush’s Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox’s canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards.

— Howard Fineman, in 2005.

Update: “Rule of Thumb #1 for President Obama:  When Howard Fineman starts looking fondly back to the Reagan administration, you know you’re in trouble.”