The mainstream media has been inadequate, inept, and at times, downright awful in their coverage of this election, so I guess this shouldn't have come as such a huge shock to me, but it did...

I clicked on Howard Fineman's recent "analysis" piece on MSNBC, "McCain's last chance, or a chance to shine?" interested in reading his take on the upcoming debate between the two presidential candidates.  I was reading along trying to work my way through the fluff to something that would resemble a logical, intellectual political analysis.  About half way in, my jaw hit the floor.

McCain is like that trick birthday candle: you keep blowing it out but it keeps springing back to life.

I think I know the reason why this is so. There is something about what McCain represents -- a soldier willing to die for his country.

Voters are understandably reluctant to be seen as rejecting that ideal, or treating it with disrespect, especially in the eyes of a doubting world.

Obama is another reason why McCain cannot be counted out, no matter what the tracking polls and Electoral College summaries are saying. There remains something about the senator from Illinois -- the big-city, Ivy League, I-know-what's-good-for-you smoothie -- that makes many swing voters reluctant to accept him, even if you edit race out of the equation, which of course, you cannot.

I simply having a hard time digesting this ridiculous, pathetic excuse for political analysis.  In the lackluster and often horrendously ineffectual coverage of this campaign, much of what spews forth from Beltway insiders seems rather unexceptional.  But this shamefully unfair framing of the two candidates brings a whole new meaning to "Swinging on the Tire."

Well, I for one, decided to email my Mr. Fineman and share with him my thoughts.

My email, below the fold...

But I RESPECT him, and I will vote for him if he is our nominee in the general.