Speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, TIME editor-at-large and Beltway Terminator Mark Halperin said the president acted like “kind of a dick” at yesterday’s press conference. Naturally, every Tom, Dick Mick, and Harry is seizing on Halperin’s comment because of its volcanic implications for the debate over how Washington should address the debt and job crises. Okay, that’s a lie, but still… it was pretty funny.
Take a look at this video courtesy of Politico.
If you’re going to call someone a dick, best to do it from a perch of total non-dickishness. Alas.
Before making his honest assessment of the president’s performance, Halperin asked Joe co-host Joe Scarborough if the show was able to switch on the seven second delay because, “I wanted to characterize how I thought the president behaved yesterday.” Then he made his dick assessment, grinning like a six year old saying the F-word for the first time. Immediately, Scarborough told someone to “delay that,” which they did not, because, according to Politico’s report, a new executive editor didn’t know how to work the button. Scarborough was not pleased. “We’re going to have a meeting after the show.” (Dickish TV types make a habit of blaming those hard-working behind-the-scenes folks.) Halperin apologized with what sounded like a complete pro-forma caught-with-my-pants-down “sorry” which he insisted was genuine and not pro-forma at all. Fair enough. The guy needs access—he’s been given a $5 million advance on his next book.
Kudos to ineptitude on all fronts, I say. This little incident has revealed/reinforced the fact that a) folks like Halperin are concealing or at least massaging their honest assessments when appearing on shows like Morning Joe, slipping into off-the-record Washington whispers when they want to talk honestly among friends during what some viewers might mistake for live and frank political discussion, and b) shows like Morning Joe are willing to accommodate just that.
I know, I know: mom dyed those eggs and hid them, my baby teeth are in a jar somewhere in the garage, and Santa isn’t a shoddy gift-wrapper, dad just likes his lagers. But sometimes it’s nice to see the mall Santa’s beard slip a little.
And just as I finish writing this… MSNBC has announced Halperin “will be indefinitely suspended from his role as an analyst.”
Joel seems to pull the phallic story duty here at CJR... Don't get James started again!...
Halperin shouldn't get the can for this one!... (For being a liberal hack posing as a journalist, yes.. for this silliness... no). This is just a guy who was joking around after being promised a bleep-out.
Stupid... yes.. Malicious? No.
#1 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Thu 30 Jun 2011 at 06:59 PM
"(For being a liberal hack posing as a journalist, yes.. for this silliness... no)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCVMBiy1f9A
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 30 Jun 2011 at 07:10 PM
I was thrilled to hear this - apparently even the liberals are getting more honest.
#3 Posted by michael munn, CJR on Fri 1 Jul 2011 at 06:09 PM
Guys, Halperin is a conservative. And an idiot. Drudge rules his world. And he is wrong about everything. Including this:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_06/what_matters_and_what_doesnt_a030605.php
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 1 Jul 2011 at 08:54 PM
...but I'm not a sockpuppet.
Everything is Such Good News For Republcans with Halperin.
Y'know, is Scarborough off the hook here? Exactly what does it take for Joltin' Joe to say "too far"? When's the last time he let someone call Shrub a dick?
#5 Posted by Thimbles is right, CJR on Fri 1 Jul 2011 at 10:01 PM
So Barack Obama merely is a "dick"?
If only.
"He shoveled money toward corporate America, banks and car manufacturers. He championed the bailouts of the same Wall Street firms his very partisans blamed for the financial collapse. He picked the CEO of General Electric to oversee the unemployment problem. He appointed corporate state regulars for every major role in financial central planning. After guaranteeing a new era of transparency, he conducted all his regulatory business behind a shroud of unprecedented secrecy. He planned his health care scheme, the crown jewel of his domestic agenda, in league with the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
"He continued the war in Iraq, even extending Bush’s schedule with a goal of staying longer than the last administration planned. He tripled the U.S. presence in Afghanistan then took over two years to announce the eventual drawdown to bring it back to only double the Bush presence. He widened the war in Pakistan, launching drone attacks at a dizzying pace. He started a war on false pretenses with Libya, shifting the goal posts and doing it all without Congressional approval. He bombed Yemen and lied about it.
"He enthusiastically signed on to warrantless wiretapping, renditioning, the Patriot Act, prison abuse, detention without trial, violations of habeas corpus, and disgustingly invasive airport security measures. He deported immigrants more than Bush did. He increased funding for the drug war in Mexico. He invoked the Espionage Act more than all previous presidents combined, tortured a whistleblower, and claimed the right to unilaterally kill any U.S. citizen on Earth without even a nod from Congress or a shrug from the courts." - Anthony Gregory
You see, Mr. Halperin only got the first syllable correct. In fact, Obama is a lying, back-stabbing, mass-murdering, money-sucking, police-statist dictator.
#6 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Sat 2 Jul 2011 at 05:53 PM
"You see, Mr. Halperin only got the first syllable correct. In fact, Obama is a lying, back-stabbing, mass-murdering, money-sucking, police-statist dictator"
I know, and yet people still think he's not conservative enough. What does a democrat have to do to please some people?
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 2 Jul 2011 at 07:49 PM
Been reading some Kevin Drum lately.
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/07/what-if-you-held-class-war-and-no-one-showed
"But then, for about the thousandth time, my mind wanders over the past ten years. Republicans got the tax cuts they wanted. They got the financial deregulation they wanted. They got the wars they wanted. They got the unfunded spending increases they wanted. And the results were completely, unrelentingly disastrous. A decade of sluggish growth and near-zero wage increases. A massive housing bubble. Trillions of dollars in war spending and thousands of American lives lost. A financial collapse. A soaring long-term deficit. Sky-high unemployment. All on their watch and all due to policies they eagerly supported. And worse: ever since the predictable results of their recklessness came crashing down, they've rabidly and nearly unanimously opposed every single attempt to dig ourselves out of the hole they created for us.
But despite the fact that this is all recent history, it's treated like some kind of dreamscape. No one talks about it. Republicans pretend it never happened. Fox News insists that what we need is an even bigger dose of the medicine we got in the aughts, and this is, inexplicably, treated seriously by the rest of the press corps instead of being laughed at. As a result, guys like Marco Rubio have a free hand to insist that Obama — Obama! The guy who rescued the banking system, bailed out GM, and whose worst crime against the rich is a desire to increase their income tax rate 4.6 percentage points! — is a "left-wing strong man" engaged in brutal class warfare against the wealthy. And Rubio does it without blinking. Hell, he probably even believes it.
We are well and truly down the rabbit hole. The party of class warfare for the past 30 years is fighting a war against an empty field and the result has been a rout. I wonder what would happen if the rest of us ever actually started fighting back?"
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/06/our-sadly-lowered-standards-dickitude
what's actually interesting here is that Halperin, in fact, thinks Obama is a dick for getting slightly combative yesterday. And this is interesting precisely because Halperin is an unimaginative weathervane of conventional wisdom. It presumably means that a fair-sized chunk of the DC press corps also thinks Obama was a bit of a dick yesterday.
If this is the case, all I can say is that the standards for dickitude have become alarmingly low in Washington, DC, these days. I mean, Republicans have spent several consecutive months holding the country hostage to their tea-party base, pretending to negotiate a budget deal when they obviously had no intention of ever agreeing to any kind of compromise, all but chortling publicly at their own cleverness, and dressing down Obama in front of the TV cameras at every opportunity. But after putting up with this for months, it's Obama who's a dick for finally pushing back a bit against these guys? Seriously?
As I was writing this, I knew I'd shortly hear from one of my regular readers who's a close student of Halperin. His comment just popped into my inbox:
In many ways, Obama really is in a box with the Republicans and the media right now. Part of it, I'm sure, is his press operation's lack of messaging. But by far the most significant part of it is the right's mastery of the media. It's not just John Boehner vs. Obama, by which the playing field would be more fair, but it's virtually every conservative senator, congressman, pundit or voter who cares to spout something outrageous or inciteful vs. Obama. Not vs. the Democrats. Obama.
....If Obama cannot get past this, if provocation of the right is forbidden, the
#8 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 3 Jul 2011 at 11:49 PM
I hate the slightly over 300 character word limit.
#9 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 4 Jul 2011 at 12:02 AM
"One Nation. Under God. Indivisible.." - enough with all of the divisive rhetoric we spew! It behooves us to remember our pledge. The President of the United States is our highest office. He is our commander in chief. He is the leader of the "free world". Show some respect. If not for the President, then who?
FIRE Mark Halperin outright! Boycott his book in its entirety. Suspend Joe Scarborough. Stand up for our country. INDIVISIBLE!
Happy Independence Day!
#10 Posted by Eric Shorter, CJR on Mon 4 Jul 2011 at 10:13 AM
Eric,
You're kidding, right?
Were King George's American subjects so keen on indivisibility or "allegiance to the flag," or did they rather swear their honor and their lives to each other to restore liberty and achieve independence (the practical opposite of indivisibility) from those who'd force them to swear their allegiance?
That's right: allegiance to the ruling class and an indivisible union ain't so great after all. In fact, the Pledge is antithetical to the ideals of the the Founding! Indeed, independence and indivisibility are incompatible!
But go ahead and kneel at the alter of the State. Keep believing that liberty, peace, and prosperity are best preserved through a political suicide pact and endless wars here and abroad. Pledge your allegiance to the liars, the thieves, the murderers, the rulers, the flag: "our country."
While you're at it, tell the battered wife she can never leave her husband; teach her about allegiance and indivisibility, and how they are just sooooo compatible with independence.
Regards,
#11 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Mon 4 Jul 2011 at 06:22 PM
I may have read the official statement from MSNBC about why Halperin has been "suspended indefinitely." but it can't be because he uttered some epithet that makes the FCC nervous---which has no regulatory authority over the MSNBC anyway. This demand for Halperin's head (and possibly his own dick too) must be coming from the late night MSNBC viewership --the Rachel Maddow/Ed Schultz/Lawrence O'Donnell disciples, who also probably want to see Morning Joe shipped off to Fox or CNN (I can bet CNN would kill for Morning Joe).
I watched Halperin make the comment live and while I half-smiled at the comment (at rare times, it is possible that Obama is a "dick," especially when he caves in to the tantrums of Republicans). I did not think Halperin's characterization was among the class of never-to-be-uttered outrages to characterize any president, especially if the individual wants to retain "credentials" (or rather credibility, as a journalist).
It would be refreshing if the CSoJ actually publishes a list of standards of journalism which treat the subject of name-calling either in the news or in opinion by those who pull cards out of their wallets or purses that identify themselves as journalists.
A note to right-wing knuckledraggers: yes, I realize that anyone to the left of Michelle Bachmann or Adolf Hitler is a "liberal"---certainly Ronald Reagan would be dismissed as a "lefty" today---but that does not truly make Halperin a liberal. From the left side, Halperin is thought to really have his calling as a Fox Noise contributor. And it may just turn out that way if MSNBC insists on this indefinite suspension.
#12 Posted by mavigozler, CJR on Sun 10 Jul 2011 at 02:52 AM