Break out the kneepads. Howard is back in town
I think Howard Fineman is releasing the perfect shitstorm on himself for this smarmy, above-it-all, snivelling column.
James Wolcott wrote of Fineman:
Journalism’s most lyric poet of the Pecos is Howard Fineman, who yodels from the pages of Newsweek and on MSNBC, his smirk eerily mirroring Bush’s. It’s as if they share the same nasty secret of snotty self-esteem. Fineman has been foremost in fluffing Bush as a hero on horseback who casts a lean shadow. No sooner had the president’s zombie press conference staggered to a close than Fineman could be heard caroling on Hardball, “If he’s a cowboy he’s the reluctant warrior, he’s Shane…because he has to, to protect his family.”
Not much of a poet, Fineman is an even poorer scholar of the sagebrush genre. Alan Ladd’s reluctant and repentant gunslinger wasn’t protecting his family; he was strapping on the holster to defend the family for whom he toiled as a hired hand. Shane also made it a point of honor to never be the first to draw. It was the bad guys and yella’ bellies who went for their guns to get the jump on the decent folk.
Howard Fineman makes me miss Media Whores Online more than usual.
