A Master Craftsman
Bill Clinton puts on a political clinic.
I just watched a master at his craft. It was like watching Michael Jordan in his prime. Bill Clinton showed the world—and Barack Obama—how it's done, and he made it look easy. Better than anyone else at this convention so far—and better than the nominee himself on the campaign trail to date—the former president made the case for the senator from Illinois and for the Democrats to take back the White House from the Republicans.
I sat five seats away from Clinton Tuesday night as he watched his wife speak in the Pepsi Center. Afterwards, I had a chance to chat with him. He said he'd read his wife's speech " a hundred times." As for his own, he said, "We'll have a good time with it tomorrow."
He was right. He enjoyed the hell out of himself. In a speech that he wrote—and rewrote—up to the last minute (what else is new?), he praised Obama directly and personally far more than his wife did (she didn't, in fact); he described elements of Obama's character in ways that made them seem just what the country needed; he described in clear detail what he saw as the devastating consequences of Republican policies; and he described with a sweeping sense of history much of public life in the last quarter century.
Clinton looked every inch a president—and not quite a "former" one at that. He told me Tuesday night that he had worked hard to lose the campaign-trail ten (or twenty) he had gained crisscrossing the country for his wife. He looked tanned, rested and ready to do it all
again.
He did not lay it on too thick. His praise of Obama's inclusive character and toughness had just a hint of jealously and rue about it—just enough to make it credible. Clinton's description of Obama's historical role was apt without being histrionic. His tone and touch were perfect—even as his wry, tongue-in-cheek smile seemed to tell, the world: boy, I'm good at this!
This convention needs above all to explain to middle-class white voters in swing states why their economic best interests lie with the Democratic Party and Obama—and why those voters cannot afford four more years of "extreme" GOP policies. Clinton laid out the problem and the case clearly. He did the same when discussing foreign policy, arguing that we do better as a nation when the world sees the "power of our example" rather than the "example of our power."
As I watched from the NBC balcony, I saw below in a sea of flags a white-haired lion not quite in winter, and not angry at his fate. I covered his first convention speech in Atlanta in 1988. I was bird-dogging him and was up close and saw what happened. He was young and hungry and afraid, and the speech was disastrously long because he had asked every friend to contribute a paragraph—and then read them all. He was also, back then, distracted, shall we say.
What I saw tonight was a testament to the fact that we all can grow up. Bill Clinton finally, impressively, has.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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