Another gasbag posing as a journalist

After gagging on Newt, I went out for the paper and I flipped on the Chris Matthews show when I returned. He does this round-robin thing during which he asks several reporters to "tell him something he doesn't know." Sometimes it's interesting.

This morning, Howard Fineman said something interesting, but in doing so he also revealed a bias. Fineman said that Colin Powell has been advising Barack Obama on foreign policy and if Obama gets far enough into the process, Powell will endorse him. Given Powell's being a Republican who served in both Bush Administrations and his role in selling the war in Iraq, that's interesting. It certainly says something about his attitude toward the current President Bush. That bit of reporting was newsworthy.

But Fineman couldn't resist falling prey to Washington talking points and political framing. He introduced his bit by saying that the reason for Powell's advisory role was Obama's inexperience. Now what are the odds that someone in the Obama camp actually told him that? Nah, that's his own bias or a plant talking. The interesting thing about the "inexperience" rap on Obama is that he's got more foreign policy experience than W had before becoming President (and probably has now), he's got more than Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and if Senate terms count as experience only a bit less than Fred Thompson or John Edwards. But Fineman doesn't talk about them that way. He just reads from the Washington script. That's neither news nor journalism.