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Posts about Howard Fineman

Howard Fineman’s “Analysis”

My father-in-law, Steven, sent me this link to a Newsweek column by Howard Fineman. Like Steven, I thought it very interesting that a conservative columnist would be basically saying that the election is all but over for Bush, given the past week’s news. But the funny thing is, I didn’t know that Fineman was conservative until I read that column. What gave it away?

It was this snippet:

On one level, Kerry’s “position” is a contradictory bundle of confusion. He says the war was a mistake, but he’s the guy calling for a gung-ho strategy in Fallujah to root out terrorist nests. As the president has pointed out, Kerry is claiming he can win the support of allies even as he dismisses the contributions of existing ones and calls the entire war a diversion–and even as France and Germany already have said that they aren’t going to rally to our side if Kerry wins. But if the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, Kerry’s “vision”–or lack of it–matters less.

This seems typical of conservative commentary–it’s a very selective description of Kerry’s position. Yes, Kerry says that the war was a mistake, but now that we’re in it, we need to do it right, including getting tough on rooting out the terrorists (who, by the way, only came into the country after the war started). Kerry has not dismissed the contributions of existing allies, but has pointed out that, unlike Desert Storm, this coalition is far from evenly divided. As Edwards repeatedly said during the Veep debate, the US bears 90% of the cost among the coalition members, both in terms of dollars and in terms of lives. There is no contradiction in these statements. The contradiction only comes up if they’re used selectively and outside of appropriate contexts.

I am so sick of this hypocrisy! I keep telling people, I can’t wait to be disappointed in Kerry’s presidency, as I was with Clinton’s. I’ll take disappointment over being offended by the President and his apologists any day!

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