Home
Howard Fineman

Howard Fineman

Articles by Howard Fineman

U.S.

Hillary Clinton, First Lady: The 1993 ‘Newsweek’ Cover Story

Here is the ‘Newsweek’ 1993 cover story on Hillary Clinton, who is expected to announce her presidential campaign this weekend.

18 min read

U.S.

Obama’s Could-Have-Been-Worse Presidency

Obama was elected as a sensation, but he is isn’t governing as one. He is putting points on the board, sometimes with little notice and comparatively less fuss than either was anticipated or was the case in the past.

7 min read

U.S.

Tea Party Win Shows Voters in a Mood for Vengeance

Democrats looking at the midterms in November are busy trying to convince themselves that the GOP is hopelessly divided, but that’s wishful thinking.

5 min read

U.S.

Politics Through the Prism of Twitter and Facebook

The best way to understand what is going on in politics this fall is to think of the difference between Facebook and Twitter. Barack Obama in 2008 was a product of Facebook, a one-man brand. The Tea Party counterrevolution of 2010 is more diffuse and fast-moving, a Twitter-based hive mind with no one central figure.

3 min read

U.S.

Fineman: What Went Wrong for Obama and the Dems

One day in the winter of 2005, I was in a Senate hallway when the new guy from Illinois arrived for a vote. Sen. Barack Obama—pop-star charisma, limitless possibility—knew his own allure. Three years later, of course, the nation knew it, too.

5 min read

U.S.

The Obama Vision of Federal Government

President Obama takes the fifth anniversary of Katrina—the deadliest and costliest natural catastrophe in American history—to try to defend the proposition that the federal government can actually help people.

4 min read

U.S.

John Boehner: The Next Speaker of the House?

Two years ago in Denver, the charismatic Obama caught the political wave, addressing a blissed-out crowd of 80,000 on a stage set as a Greek temple with him as the high priest of new government activism. But an anti-Democratic tide is building, and if the Republicans can win 39 House seats in November, Boehner could be speaker.

5 min read

U.S.

Pomp, Politics, and Pink Slips

Admittedly, it’s a slow news day. Congress is in recess, Obama is on the Vineyard, so reporters such as yours truly find themselves in Cleveland to witness one of those shopworn campaign ploys in action as Rep. John Boehner calls for pink slips for Obama’s economic advisers Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. But calling for someone’s head is always worth a graph or two in a wire story.

2 min read

U.S.

Bill Clinton Campaigns for Obama … or Does He?

If you’re President Obama, here is a galling fact: most Democrats would rather have Bill Clinton campaign for them this fall than, um, you.

3 min read

U.S.

Fineman: Immigration, Ethics, and Islam

If we had any sense, the fall elections would be about just one thing: the economy. But we do not have any sense. We are facing what Wall Street would call the ‘triple witching hour.’

4 min read

World

Europeans Can’t Be Bothered to Hate America

Just a few years ago, Europeans seemed to despise the United States. Today, it’s not that their opinions have reversed; it’s that they just don’t care.

5 min read

World

Sail the Seas and Come to the Holy City of Byzantium

For the third time in three millennia, the city we now know as Istanbul and the country we now know as Turkey are becoming pivotal places in the affairs of the world.

5 min read

U.S.

Fineman: Obama and ‘Indie Men’ Voters

Barack Obama did not descend from the clouds. Polling was involved, as were focus groups and the usual marketing machinery. You didn’t hear much about number crunching in 2008; you don’t hear much about it now. Obama couldn’t, and can’t, be seen as unsoiled and sui generis if his handlers talk too much about mechanics.

4 min read

U.S.

Why Obama Is in a Hurry to Make History

“Hardball” host Chris Matthews has a theory about Barack Obama: he is running his presidency as though there is no tomorrow—that is, no second term. So far in his presidency Obama has been tackling, even seeking out, sweeping, controversial challenges: the stimulus, the auto bailout, health-care reform, a new arms-control treaty with Russia. So, is he in a hurry because he figures there may be no second term?

3 min read

U.S.

The Real Leanings of Lindsey Graham

Only a few senators could have pulled off what Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, did last week: snagging major airtime at two high-profile confirmation hearings, seemingly at the same time.

4 min read

U.S.

Roberts vs. Marshall at the Kagan Hearings

Elena Kagan’s confirmation process has become a trial in absentia for competing views on how the Supreme Court should work, personified by two very different justices, John Roberts and Thurgood Marshall.

4 min read

U.S.

New General, Same Problem for Obama in Afghanistan

Barack Obama, as candidate and president, in effect created the IED known as Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Now that improvised explosive device has blown up in the midst of the Obama presidency. The damage is severe, if not crippling.

4 min read

U.S.

How Nikki Haley Survived Political Scandal

In the old days, gubernatorial candidate Haley wouldn’t have had a chance. Accused not once, but twice, of marital infidelity, how did she survive a firestorm of controversy?

5 min read

U.S.

Fineman: Paul, Whitman, Angle, and the Press

Do political candidates still need the press? Based on what’s going on in Kentucky, where I began my career, I’m no longer sure. After saying a few weeks ago that a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an overreach, Rand Paul is sticking to safe, controlled venues. A public meeting of Republicans in Louisville was not one of them—two top reporters showed up.

4 min read

News

Obama’s Good Day

President Obama had good reason to tread lightly in his Oval Office address Tuesday night: he was in the midst of coaxing a $20 billion-plus commitment out of a London-based company that already has lost half of its market value.

2 min read

U.S.

Obama’s Curiously Flat Gulf Speech

Somewhere between Pensacola and the Oval Office, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico went from an “assault” to an “epidemic”—and President Obama went from commander in chief to surgeon general. And that, in short, is why his speech to the nation fell so flat even as he delivered it.

3 min read