Wednesday Night at the Obituary Pages

 Howard Fineman, a journalist long affiliated with Newsweek and could be found giving his take on political issues and personalities on CNN and other places, has died at the age of 75.  Sadly, he had suffered from pancreatic cancer, which is as bad as it gets.  He lived with it for at least two years after he was diagnosed.

The older I get, the more I think that people who die in the seventies or even eighties "aren't that old."  

Anyway, about Fineman:

Born Nov. 17, 1948, in Pittsburgh, Fineman joined Newsweek in 1980 and quickly began building a reputation as one of the nation's most astute observers of the Beltway scene.

From his perch at what was then one of the most widely read newsweeklies in the U.S., Fineman covered presidents and political players and gave his readers a look behind the scenes on Capitol Hill where the decisions that affect their lives were being made.

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Fineman had degrees from both Colgate University and Columbia.

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Basketball great Jerry West, 86, has died.  He was the silhouette on the NBA logo, so you know he had to be good enough to be honored in that fashion.   West was downright tiny at 6 feet, 3 inches, but he somehow compensated for it.

Snip:

His was a life like few others: an NBA and Olympic champion as a player, a champion as an executive and someone selected to be enshrined by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame not once, not twice, but three times. West died on Wednesday at age 86, the Los Angeles Clippers announced.

“We can only hope there is someone we meet during a crucial time in our lives that will change you in ways you could dream about,” said Miami Heat President Pat Riley, who played with and worked with West during their time together as Los Angeles  Lakers. “Jerry was that person for me.”

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Finally, I will mention the death of former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt, whose reputation went into the shitter years after he left office when he was accused of rape of a minor in the 1970s, has died at the age of 83.

Details:

Between converting a busy highway into a popular riverfront park and developing the seeds of a robust public transit system, Portland’s fuzzy-haired, sideburned mayor had a secret double life. For years in the 1970s, he engaged in an illegal sexual relationship with the teenage daughter of an aide.

At 32, Goldschmidt was elected the youngest mayor of a major American city in 1972. Seven years later, he left City Hall to become President Jimmy Carter’s transportation secretary. He served one term as Oregon governor, from 1987 to 1991.

Miracles Never Cease

Howard Fineman gives several reasons why Obama is having such difficulty. I especially like this take on Obama's declining to take public financing, a truly insane move and contrary to Democratic Party principles:

Declining to take federal financing for the general election
This mistake is two-pronged. Obama stands accused of flip-flopping on the matter, saying in 2007 that he’d accept those funds and the cash limits that come along with it. In relying solely on private money, Obama appears to have ceded some higher ground to McCain, who, with his public funding, appears slightly more immune to interest groups. On a more practical level, Obama will have to leave the campaign trail more often to headline fundraising events. He’ll likely spend more time than he should in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles and less than he needs in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit.

You can blame Kos and his ilk for this shit. This will cost Obama dearly.

Unlike Fineman, I believe it is far too late for Obama to reverse course.

Along those same lines, Obama is coming under increased criticism over how he's approaching John McCain:

The Democratic presidential candidate's slump in the polls has sparked pointed private criticism that he is squandering a once-in-a-generation chance to win back the White House.
Party elders also believe the Obama camp is in denial about warnings from Democratic pollsters that his true standing is four to six points lower than that in published polls because of hidden racism from voters - something that would put him a long way behind Mr McCain.
The Sunday Telegraph has learned that senators, governors and union leaders who have experience of winning hard-fought races in swing states have been bombarding Obamas campaign headquarters with telephone calls offering advice. But many of those calls have not been returned.
A senior Democratic strategist, who has played a prominent role in two presidential campaigns, told The Sunday Telegraph: "These guys are on the verge of blowing the greatest gimme in the history of American politics. They're the most arrogant bunch Ive ever seen. They won't accept that they are losing and they won't listen."

No kidding. But he shouldn't have been the nominee in the first place.

Peggy Noonan nails it with her observation:

Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan speechwriter, blamed the defection of women voters from Mr Obama on the atom bomb of ritual abuse by left-wing bloggers and Democratic officials, painting Mrs Palin as a bad mother and religious weirdo.
Ms Noonan wrote: "The snobbery of it, the meanness of it, reminded the entire country, for the first time in a decade, what it is they don't like about the Left."

It is the arrogance, stupid.

The Blue-Collar Vote

You better believe it Democrats had better be worried about the blue-collar vote.

Blame Obama and his campaign for farting around and not trying to do much of anything to get support from Clinton supporters; in fact, they give every indication they don't much give a shit about them.

Obamamann

had a one-sided discussion tonight about the Reverend Wright issue.

You'd think Howard Fineman would have better things to do than blather about things he knows nothing about.



Fineman did make a good point or two about the difficulty of Obama cutting off Wright. Wright is going to be all over the country on a book tour.

Lovely.

No matter what the spin, the reality is Wright is still an albatross hanging around Barack's neck.

Having Failed

to drive Hillary Clinton out of the race now that she has won Pennsylvania's primary, the media meme now is Hillary must try to convert the superdelegates: