Howard Fineman (title: Newsweek's senior Washington Correspondent and columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington Bureau Chief), quoted at Whiskey Fire:
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.
As Whiskey Fire says:
The column is an accumulation of gibberish about how The Elite are having qualms about Obama, and that such qualms place him in the incredibly precarious political position of being left with no real support except for that of the majority of Americans.
In Newsweek today, Howard Fineman has one of the flimsiest and most inane -- yet highly revealing -- columns in some time. Fineman announces that while Barack Obama may be popular among most Americans, "the American establishment' -- who Fineman believes, like most journalists, he speaks for and serves -- "is taking his measure and, with surprising swiftness, they are finding him lacking." As David Sirota notes, Fineman offers no evidence for his announcement of what "the establishment" thinks and never even bothers to identify what this "establishment" is which is rebelling against Obama, other than to say that "it is a three-sided force, churning from inside the Beltway, from Manhattan-based media and from what remains of corporate America."
Even if Fineman were right that this unseen "three-sided establishment" is becoming disenchanted with Obama, who should care? Or, more to the point, who should consider that to be a negative reflection on Obama? What has this "three-sided establishment" done that is remotely positive? What have they been right about? What disaster haven't they cheered on and enabled?
