The Black Republican

First, it was word last week that New Jersey - sitting as it did one fateful morning three years ago, in the very shadow of the Manhattan skyline - was tilting right again. Now Howard Fineman, resident Democratic water-carrier for MSNBC, has cracked so completely he's beginning to tell the truth.

Kerry told financial supporters in New York the other week that his objective, for now, was to "preserve my acceptability." That’s a pretty low standard - but one he won’t meet if that is his only goal. So far, his strategy has amounted mostly to: Vote for me, I’m not Bush. That’s not enough, especially if Kerry is seen by most voters the way the BC04 ad portrays him: as a flip-flopping manipulative insider.

That's going to leave a mark in the halls of the DNC offices. But worse yet is the fact that he's beginning to express a pitiful, anti-American fatalism, as evidenced by this quote:

Let’s face it, as a people we tend to like simple answers and strong leaders who propound them. That may be especially true in these, the early years of what is likely to be a long, twilight struggle against terrorism.

"Twilight struggle"? Is Mr. Fineman suggesting that we are fighting a war for our very survival that the United States cannot win, and that will result in the death of our civilization?

Even if you must accept that premise (and I don't for a minute), wouldn't you be attracted to the man who is resolved to fight over the man who chooses to appease and cower in the face of death?