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MSNBC’s Howard Fineman used his prowess at gather information while traveling in London and Paris last week and came to the conclusion that Obama’s "star is dimming" and Washington DC is no longer the place to be, based on what Fineman read — or didn’t read — in newspapers overseas.
Specifically, Fineman said,
I was in London and Paris last week while Obama was making his first trip to Asia. I kept paging through the local papers for stories about the trip. They were only few — almost none. He was all but invisible, except when bowing deeply to the emperor of Japan. There weren’t many stories about the United States, either.
Fineman is unable to read French or English, or he’s just plain lying.
I ran across reporting during the same time frame in French news outlets, all of which reported on President Obama’s attendance at APEC. Le Monde, France24, Agence France Presse, to name a few, reported on Obama at APEC before, during and after, with the latter outlets publishing substantially more content in English pour le bénéfice des idiots comme Fineman.
(Let me know if you can’t understand the last handful of words in that graf, Fineman; I’ll be glad to interpret them for you.)
Here’s one example of the coverage Fineman apparently couldn’t read:
Barack Obama défend une Toile sans censure en Chine (Le Monde, 16 Nov 2009) [English version here]
They couldn’t make it any easier for Fineman; the president’s name appears in the headline along with a picture of Obama talking with Chinese students about the internet and censorship.
AFP also published video clips of Obama at APEC on the internet for folks who struggle with reading.
For non-Asian countries, the big news emerging from the APEC summit last week was that Obama and China’s President Hu Jiantao had a meeting of the minds on climate change. The big news was not the fucking bow to a Japanese leader, which would have been non-news for countries with any couth.
Note France24′s coverage of Obama’s pre-APEC meeting in Japan; see anything about subordinating American power to a foreign leader in this piece, let alone anything about bowing?
And if Fineman was in Paris combing over the newspapers for news about Obama, why didn’t he note that Richard Holbrooke, special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, drew considerable attention the day before APEC began because of a meeting in Paris? French outlets which cover diplomatic events took notice even if Fineman didn’t; very few American outlets covered this meeting, but Fineman was too busy trying to avoid news about Obama in Asia to notice that his own employer missed (avoided?) a news story.
Hasn’t Fineman noticed stories in overseas financial news outlets about money running to other global investments like those in BRIC countries for more than two years? Hasn’t Fineman read our own American news outlets and seen the same news for over a year?
Didn’t Fineman notice that the rest of the world expressed great relief when this oldest of democracies transferred power from the Bush administration to the Obama administration? Perhaps he was struggling with reading all those foreign papers which were covered with photos of Barack Obama…
Has Fineman been asleep over the last ten years as American manufacturing and services fled to China, India and Brazil? No need to even read a paper in London or Paris, no proficiency in a foreign language required — just go through the archives of newspapers in Detroit to read up on automakers’ plants moving overseas.
Of course America’s profile has fallen, but it’s not news after eight years of illegal warfare based on arrogant hegemonic power. Of course the global financial markets are flocking elsewhere; our banks have been jacked up for years and can’t be trusted. But blaming this on Obama’s ten months in office and claiming the world has turned its back on him and on Washington is just plain ridiculous.
Why does Fineman think we can’t see through his stupidity and/or lies? Doesn’t he know about "teh Google" and that Americans actually do know how to use it to access foreign news media? I’ll leave proof below we are perfectly capable of finding let alone reading foreign media; note the examples of French media reporting on Obama at the APEC summit and his tour of Asia.
And why does MSNBC’s editorial team allow Fineman’s special kind of crap as news?
Don’t answer that, it’s a purely rhetorical question. Fineman’s work must be one of those synthetic attempts at balancing — like offsetting Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow with insulting idiocy.
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Examples of stories by French news outlets covering Obama and APEC; there were plenty of UK outlet coverage as well if only Fineman had really made and effort to look (try the BBC for starters):
Le président Obama entame au Japon sa première tournée en Asie (AFP, Tokyo, 13 Nov 2009)
Le président américain BarackObama à Singapour pour le sommet de l’Apec (AFP, Singapore, 14 Nov 2009)
APEC leaders douse hopes on climate pact (AFP, Singapore, 15 Nov 2009)
(This one is in English; note the last graf, which would have explained to an idiot like Fineman why so much news last week about BRIC countries. God but he’s a fecking moron.)
Obama veut renforcer l’engagement des Etats-Unis en Asie (Le Monde, 13 Nov 2009)
(Take note: although this article discusses Obama’s first meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, there is NO mention of any bow. That’s because it’s not news, Fineman.)
A Shangaï, Obama veut l’amitié de la Chine et insiste sur les "droits universels" (Le Parisien/Aujourd’hui, 16 Nov 2009)
(Where Le Monde is considered the paper of record in France, Aujourd’hui is the largest newspaper in terms of circulation. Here’s just one of the stories on Obama’s APEC summit appearance from Aujourd’hui; they also carried some of the AFP stories on the same.)
63 Comments
Great catch, Rayne.
Have you sent Fineman the links? Or is his contact info privagte, no doubt.
Our local NPR station runs the BBC weeknights from 10A – 5 AM. Every single night that I listen, for just a little while, they have stories about Obama. I didn’t particularly listen during the Asia trip, but it’s commonplace, as you say.
Fineman occasionally sounds sensible when talking with Keith, but obviously, like the rest, he picks his narrative and looks for “evidence” to support it.
Not just more and better Dems, but more and better reporters!
(not journalists; the rapid slide into entertainment began when American reporters began calling themselves “journalists.”)
Forgot – maybe Fineman only reads the International Herald Tribune? It’s basically American, isn’t it?
Fixed it for you.
Hey – just came back from a quick search of the French press – starting with your links. I searched at le monde, le figaro, and le point, and only came up with one story mentioning “the bow” in Japan – and that entire story was about the US reaction, with quotes from (heaven help us) Bill Kristol and Bill Bennett. And it was a short piece.
Fineman is a putz.
(can I say putz on FDL?)
You can say “putz” as often as you’d like. It’s tame by comparison to some of the nouns and adjectives I’ve used — well, even in this piece.
Sorry, not going to bother send this to Fineman; if he can’t be bothered to read Le Monde or watch the Beeb, he’s not going to bother with a blog post.
Pretending you don’t exist is all part of his game plan.
Fineman is auditioning to be the
newnext Broderella?Well, Broder is getting on in years, eh? Somebody’s got to be the old slacker who can’t read.
Jeepers, just went and checked on Broder’s age — he’s going to be 81 soon.
Retire already. Fineman’s apparently got the gig down pat.
Yeah but the WaPo0 also has Broders in training with folks like Cillizza and Milbank. The competition is fierce I tell ya.
Ah, that’s the next generation in the queue.
Broder graduated from high school roughly 1947.
Fineman graduated from high school in 1966.
Millbank graduated from high school approx. 1986.
Cillizza was class of 1994.
They have them stacked up for three generations after Broder, they’re all set.
You are a courageous and devoted researcher, with a strong stomach!
OMG. Pure crap as far as the eye can see.
The term I use for folks like Fineman is “Willfully obtuse”
Whatever news skills Fineman may have had have long since atrophied. Like most Villagers, his idea of news gathering is checking his e-mail (or attending the weekly conference call) to see what fresh steaming talking points the RNC has cooked up for him.
Haven’t perused the European press, – I wonder though whether the instances of reportage are agog and glowing, or ever more just reportage?
Well, you can try using Google Language Tools — they’re about 95% accurate on French — and read the articles at the links above.
Try an assortment of UK papers as well; some are very much right-leaning, like the Telegraph, and some less so.
You could also go to Newseum.org, click on Today’s Headlines and look up regional papers if you want to check them going forward. (They won’t have last week’s papers, sorry.)
Most other countries are more even-handed, or if they have right-leaning papers, there are left-leaning ones as well. I find the business pages are the best way to gage their lean as the numbers reporting strips out some hyperbole. If they can’t get the numbers right, I can’t trust the rest of the content.
I have read foreign newspapers regularly as part of my consulting work; it’s amazing what appears in other papers outside of this country.
thanks rayne! although I should have added: recently.
I do agree that reading foreign press is a sine qua non to understanding the US within the context of Globalization.
Foreign media doesn’t parrot GOP talking points, so you can often get a clearer picture of pending legislation in the U.S. than you can from domestic Big Media.
Howard Fineman ?
Goosh! I just want to puke.
Obama’s star is fading – that’s how I read it (Fineman with glee, myself, with despair)
Actually, no, I don’t think so at all. I think that the reason why Obama doesn’t appear in mega-font above the fold in a fashion which can’t escape Fineman’s crappy reading skills is that HE’S AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT.
The rest of the world has resumed their own business, trusting that the idiot who ran our country won’t be fucking with theirs.
If you actually take the time to read the articles I linked, you’ll see that they take Obama seriously; they feature him well ahead of Hu Jintao or Dmitri Medvedev, for example, looking at how Obama handled meeting with them rather than the other way around.
But now he’s not a threat they have to watch every second. They can get back to the business of their own countries.
Reality doesn’t fit the narrative he’s playing with, so he’s going to ignore reality instead of changing the narrative.
I do not understand why Howard Fineman and Richard Wolff appear regularly on Countdown. Perhaps their proximity to a plugged-in camera explains it. Surely it’s neither their insight nor their intellect.
Keith knows better.
You know, Teddy, they could at least find smarter, better looking younger guys, too.
I’d like to hear more from David Faber, who’s been ensconced at CNBC, for example. He’s very smart, articulate, quick on his feet, and able to be a centrist journo, able to do more than just financial stuff.
I think it is just familiarity with the host.
An amusing clip of Howard Dean critiquing David Broder specifically and Beltway “journalism” in general.
He does it in a misguided defense of Harry Reid but it is worth it to hear Mort Zuckerman (incorrectly identified in the C&L post as Martin Savidge) sputter.
Oh, good stuff, ratfood!
Zuckerman’s a moron. What Broder does is NOT journalism. It’s opinion, and the opinion of an old coot who should have retired along with his Fleetwood Brougham and leisure suits.
My favorite part:
Uh, gee Mort, that’s not much in the way of a rebuttal…
Are you sure Fineman wasn’t right…?
After all, who in Europe really cares about what happens in China, Japan, or India?
/s
FWIW, wonder whether Fineman stumbled upon the news about Dubai over the weekend…?
Der Spiegel, Holbrooke interview: 9/11 9/11 9/11 plus ca change….
“SPIEGEL: With that experience in the back of your mind, do you think it really pays for the United States to fight wars in far-off and unstable lands, especially those that have acquired a reputation for being a “graveyard of empires?”
Holbrooke: Of course it’s difficult to fight in Afghanistan. But it’s necessary because of 9/11. That is the core difference between Afghanistan and Vietnam. We’re not in Afghanistan to build a perfect democracy. We know these were not perfect elections. But we must go ahead, we must help the Afghans strengthen their own capabilities. We’re not there to take over the country, we’re there to help the Afghans build their own capacity so that their security forces can replace the international forces over an acceptable period of time. “
That’s a perfect example right there — the kind of questions we aren’t hearing American media ask. Cheese-on-rice, the media here isn’t even talking with Holbrooke; the foreign media is all over him.
WRT to that particular response: Unfortunately, Holbrooke couldn’t say anything but what he said. He’s boxed in by policy to now, which he didn’t make. Would have been shocked to hear him say anything else.
The one thing I think we on the left are going to miss or ignore about this week’s announcement on then new strategy is that all plans were pushed back for lack of an exit strategy. The teams were forced to go back and develop one to add to their recommendations, from which Obama will try to cherry-pick.
Yes, but how much longer will America’s ‘cold war policies’ allow the world to perceive any separation between Obama and Bush?
Sooner than not, his economic policies, and imperialist projections are bound to befoul his persona.
Do you really think the guys who have the money and the guys who make the weapons are really going to let Obama off a very tight leash?
If you think about it, they may already have reinforced this week that he is very touchable…
What would you do if you were the first African American president?
sorry, wrong ethnic experience here. Better question might be; what would MLK have done?
He did. And you know what happened.
Perhaps desisted from vying for the position in the first place, if he didn’t have the balls to stand up to the Masters of the Universe?!!!
But we know your point is moot, since he is, and has been their man for quite some time.
The rest of the world has low expectations for any U.S. admin but Obama will continue to be favored over Bush for the simple reason that he is willing to talk to adversaries… unless he invades and occupies yet another country.
Isn’t he bombing civilians (among others) in Pakistan. Last I checked, USA invaded Afghanistan because of just such behavior.
Like Fineman’s peers, they have all grown lazy and complacent replacing opinion or corporate speak for investigative reporting and analysis. Their hunger for information and facts has been replaced with maintaining access to a handful of aggenda driven sources. It makes life so simple when all you do is fabricate a narrative and then manipulate a source or two to support it. They are loosing out with the demise of the big newspapers and the ever skinnier and skinner news magazines. The bright young hungry journalists on the web, covering news, writing books and doing the “real work” of reporting are making them irrelevant among the under 65 crowd. Almost everyone on CNN, Chris Matthews, ABC News, Schieffer, nearly every pundit on MTP except Rachael are all old coots from another time that simply can’t or won’t adapt to honest journalism.
I worry that the younger ones who are quite good are going to get starved out until the news industry business model gets fixed. We’re going to have to figure out how we readers can pay a living wage for real news and reward good reporting.
Hope like hell we aren’t seeing new, good reporters because we’re supporting the likes of tenured oldsters. Ugh.
That is why they have to write books and appear on TV. They do get PAID for appearing on TV, no?
And so many of them just don’t seem very smart. Rachel is smart. I know that Keith didn’t go to the “real” Cornell (thanks, Ann Coulter /s) but he seems pretty smart. Christ Matthews just doesn’t, for example. Just bring on some smart ones who can sift through facts. I’m tired of tired old opinions by mediocre old men (and women.)
Chris Matthews is smart, he is just promoting an agenda that incorporates keeping his audience stupid.
I call what he does ‘gate-keeping’ and he is actually pretty good at it. A lot of people never notice that he is doing it. They usually think he is just being rude.
Rachel demonstrates the perfect combination of smart, and fair in her style of moderation. Either would be enough, but what I most like is the latter. Chris has none of the latter and I find him unwatchable, so I accept your comment about his audience as a compliment! I haven’t got Ed pegged yet, (It sometimes seems that he doesn’t either) but he lets his guests make their points
Amen.
Fineman or not; allegedly some 20% of college sophomores cannot tell the name of the body of water abutting California.
You mean the Sea of Cortez?
ever read this?
No but it sounds like a worthwhile read.
Thank No-Child-Left-Behind and the fact that California teachers aren’t paid well……and lots of kids are pretty much raising themselves….and all the other downturns California (and other states, of course) has faced over the past 4 decades or so.
I gather that was 20 percent of college sophomores nationwide. Cynical as I am I have to believe California students would fare better.
I am always distracted by Finemans hair. Its changing color like the seasons…the one time during last years election where he spent an entire half hour or so with it combed strangely and sticking up across his head…I mean who listens to him…you are always mesmerized by his hair…that strange coiffed head of his.
You should then feel comforted by Tweeties, it’s the same formula all the time. And Lou’s – the share across networks.
Oh my, bless you, whomever did this…I just saw in our traffic that somebody visited a Christy Hardin Smith post from 2006.
Faux News Trailer Trash Pie
Bwa-hahahahah! An oldie but a goodie, and now even more trailer trash pie to go around these days!
Eli is upstairs!
What’s Your Gift-Shopping Philosophy?
It used to be travel writers. They could be extremely sloppy, beginning with Marco Polo. They figured their word would never be tested because nobody went to China in those days, and nobody reads the foreign press over here today. Once I read a report from Culiacán which explained how the drivers in that city never used their headlights at night in order to “conserve power.” That one stuck with me; it’s idiotic on its face, and you don’t have to go to Mexico to know that.
The difference between such bunko artists and Palin is that the Grinning Gargoyle thinks nobody is likely to ever visit earth.
A mon avis, le problème c’est qu’en ne connaissant pas la langue il a pris les bandes dessinées pour les journaux. Que je sache, il n’y a pas de BD Obama. Donc il n’a pas réussi à trouver le nom du Président. En même temps, il a appris que les Français sont tellement préoccupés par des hommes de politique qui s’appellent Astérix et Tintin. Il se félicite sans doute parce qu’il connaît des choses que la plupart des Américains moins voyageurs et sophistiqués que lui ne comprendront jamais.
En plus, qui le savait? les journaux français sont très colorés.
Yes, I can see where Fineman might have been reading comics instead of the news for lack of language skills. But clearly Obama’s name appears in headlines whether in English or French papers last week, and there’s photos of him as well.
Fineman also noted reporting money moving to BRIC countries in either English or French — um, that’s not going to be in the funny papers. Fineman a pas de raisons ou d’excuses pour son comportement.
Vous lui donnez plus de crédit qu’il ne mérite. Wigwam a la bonne explication. C’est un journaliste américain typique. Il dit ce qu’on lui donne à dire. Cela me rappelle la citation célèbre de Upton Sinclair :
Fineman was given his talking point, and he delivered it. What more can one ask from a mainstream American journalist?
An ‘Obelisk’ is what this Party needs.
and a good quote that is, and very a pros pos both Obama and Fineman.
I think that there is a fundamental difference in how people form their views and on which sources they rely. This difference is that some people seek information while others are subject to information that is provided to them.
For the former group, all information is viewed with some scepticism and checked for coherence, no matter what the source. That is exactly why patently absurd comments from Broder or Holbrooke or Obama are seen for what they are, if you are a gatherer of information.
So for example to claim that Obama is an effectual president and an agent of change is absurd. He is a plodding incrementalist that abhors change and that is why he is despised by many on the left, a constituency that is largely gatherers of information. Here it is easy to discern fact from fiction.
This is also why newspapers sre becoming extinct, largely because gatherers of information have no need of them. And if accurate this may show that newspapers may have previously been propped up in bygone days largely by those on the left who now can do perfectly without them.
TV I think is a different matter in that the viewer is more captive, which explains why Fox news is the most watched source of news.
Yummy delicious post! With a freaky ugly picture of Howard to boot. We know how vain he is. Crushing!