'Disgusting' Talk from Mark Halperin

The Time.com blogger has gotten a lot of Web attention since Friday when, at a forum in L.A., he called media bias in favor of Obama all year "disgusting," the worst display of media malfeasance since the run-up to the Iraq war (which Halperin himself was a part of, he neglects to say).  Here's Halperin's full quote:  "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war.  It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."  Getting much less notice was the response from Mark Barabak, political writer for the L.A. Times, at the same affair: "Look at it in it's totality, at the end of the day did the media serve its function, to inform people about who these two men are? Yes they did."

Much more in a coming post on all this, but for now see what I wrote on this subject recently.  But Halperin himself couldn't be biased, could he?  One recalls his remarkable letter to far right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt last year when he declared, "I really enjoyed our radio talk and I appreciated the opportunity to appear with someone I respect so much....As I said on the show, you and I agree on almost everything we discussed."  Halperin co-authored a book with John Harris of Politico last year, in which they titled one chapter "Matt Drudge Rules Our World."  They explained that  Drudge "is the gatekeeper... he is the Walter Cronkite of his era."  The pair also declared that for any Democrat to win the White House in 2008 they would have to somehow neutralize and get past Drudge.  In fact, Drudge, amazingly, turned out to be a relative non-factor in the campaign.

Halperin  is so terrified of offending McCain's team that he recently gave each of them an overall grade of "B" or higher for their campaign work -- even though they led him to defeat (in a rout), helped him make the disastrous Palin pick,  left much of his reputation in tatters and took much of his party down with him.  Other than that: Good work, guys.

And who can forget Halperin's lengthy post at his site back in February when he listed 16 things that "McCain can do" in taking on Obama that the vanquished Hillary Clinton could not. The list included  "6. Allow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama" and "11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama's unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism."   Since he is close to McCain's campaign team,  this was readily interpreted as direct advice and offended so many that Halperin later placed at the bottom of the post in red, Note: This is analysis of what is likely to happen, not advice or endorsement. And in that update he disingenuosly commented, "McCain has already been forced to denounce several instances of some of these efforts." Gee, wonder who might have inspired "some of these efforts"?

It's the old false equivalency problem.  In his "disgusting" remarks at the forum,  Halperin cited as the most obvious flaw the NYT's late profiles of Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama.  Why, the McCain profile was more negative!  But, come of think of it, Michelle did not have an affair with Barack while he was married to another,  did not steal from her own charity and barely avoid jail, did not become a drug addict, did not lie about the the circumstances of adopting a baby abroad, and so on.

Asked at the forum to name the #1 reason the media boosted Obama, Halperin replied that it was the desire to see him simultaneously "etched in stain glass" and "on Mount Rushmore."

A few years back, I wrote a pair of books for Random House about famously dirty U.S. political elections, so I know a thing or two about press bias in campaigns.  This year, one of the best high-profile measures of how the media often bent over backwards to be kind to McCain surrounded the four presidential and veep debates.  In every case, most of the TV network anchors and analysts declared when the debates ended that the Republican had tied or won narrowly.  Then the post-debate polls of voters came in, showing that in every case, Obama or Biden won easily.

Halperin loves to make lists, often on a daily basis.  I would love to see his list of evidence for "extreme" media bias against McCain.  Then we could judge his standards.  Perhaps that list would even change my mind.  But as I observed in the column I linked to back in paragraph #2,  most of the claims for the media favoring Obama have come in tallies of "favorable" stories about him.  This, of course, is absurd since (as reports also show) the "horse race"  dominated the media's coverage  and Obama led that race easily by every measure:  polls, fundraising, drawing crowds, online activity, key endorsements, and more.  Halperin would do better to rail against "horse race" coverage-- but then he wouldn't do that, since he practices it more often than nearly anyone.

Here's a brief video of Halperin making his "disgusting" comments. -- Greg Mitchell

Comments

[The-LAST-LiberalRepublican]

Halperin is a FOOL. Barack Obama ran a clean campaign and he was subjected daily to the most scrutiny of any presidential candidate in history, he was the only one judged on his associations, race, religion, character, patriotism, I can go on with a list a mile long. If Obama did one thing was to tell the truth, his opponents got the heat cause they lied about him, thats different than what Halperin is implying that it was an Obama love fest, Halperin just shows that he is an ignorant ass at best or he is just mad cause his guy did not win.

[SmirkingChimp]

First: Halperin is a hack. He is also not unique; he epitomizes the current mainstream "journalist" perfectly.

Something worse than Halperin:

http://www.correntewire.com/content/lets-brush-our-german

Boycott this racist website. Post this link on sites in which this site is blogrolled; the "commentary" is vile and pathetic. These people are scum.

[Wendell]

Hilarious and very true. Candidates and their campaigns weren't equal, to portray them in same light wouldn't be unbiased journalism, it would be lying.
Of course there were biased journalists with pro-McCain and pro-Obama bias, but overall, McCain campaigners didn't get all the slack they deserved for their disgusting, dishonest tactics.

[ladycubsfan]

Listen up, Halperin! This article is the absolute truth and nails you to the wall of shame. Will you have the balls to own up to it? That would be a "NO."
You are too easy.

[midwesthousewife]

Halperin is conveniently ignoring the study earlier this spring which said that 76% of the press coverage of Obama was negative while 49% of McCain's was negative. The press piles on at different times--one week it is all glowing, the next week it is all slash-and-burn. Obama is so remarkable in his smarts, his organization, his rhetorical skills, his people skills--few can hold a candle to him. Hard for the press to be able to seem even-handed when comparing apples and oranges!

[lawalazu]

Thank you, Greg. Halperin is trying to sell a book, and that's fine with me. But he wants to use Barack Obama to do so, and that's the shame.

We all know that Barack Obama was the most scrutinized candidate we've seen in a long time. Halperin prefers to overlook the massive hatefest we saw at Fox news daily. A MSM that took upon itself to ask if Obama was arrogant after he returned from a successful overseas trip. One time he was faced with the question of his color. Was he black enough, maybe, maybe not so much, and on and on.

His citizenship was questioned. People demanded a copy of his birth certificate. Have we ever seen that before in this country? Never.

Let's not talk about the false stories about his religion that even some MSM filtered into their stories.

John McCain did not even begin to get a look until he brought Sarah Palin into his campaign.

You want to talk bias: Imagine if Barack Obama had picked someone in the vein of Sarah Palin for his running mate. A woman who preached abstinence, but had a pregnant out of wedlock daughter. A woman who clearly was unfit for the postiion. Do you think for one nano second, if it was Barack Obama, he would have been discussed seriously as a contender in that race after that? Do you think if he and Michelle had brought their pregnant unwed daughter with her boy friend on floor of the convention, they would be standing th next day?

No!

Mark Halperin was the only reporter on this planet, who declared McCain the winning of the week at a time when McCain declared the economy was fundamentally strong, after the stock market fell 500 points.

Halperin is wrong, and as I said, is trying to sell his book. Let him do so, but come back to a reality based world.

I am sick and tired of people trying to delegitimize Obama's win by claiming the press was easy on him.

That is a blantant lie!

[Slytot]

halperin is a racist pure and simple.

[Jeff from PA]

Thank you so much for writing this. I am so sick of this press bias for Obama claim. For two years we had to listen to Obama called "inexperienced" and an "empty suit" despite his three decades of public service and years as a constitutional law professor - imagine that, a president that knows the constitution! Yet Sarah Palin has less then a decade of public service and the media relentlessly defended her at every turn. If you dared question her experience, it was called sexism. Even John Edwards had tons of less experience than Obama, yet this was rarely mentioned for him either.

Also, he seems to clearly forget how Obama clearly had the primaries wrapped up for months, yet the press felt the need to keep portraying the race as if it were tied.

Then, of course there was the circus of Jeremiah Wright - which all major news sources used clips taken out of context and spliced together by Sean Hannity and played it 24 /7 for a month to try to destroy Obama..

How many thousands of times was the Obama's pride in their country questioned because of flag pins, a poorly worded statement by Michelle, etc...

How about the horrific reporting on Bill Ayers - every station reported continuously on the "connection between Obama and a domestic terrorist" even though the so-called connection was no more than a kid that was in the same science class as me in 6th grade!

And of course there was the mess that was Palin... I did not see a major news network ask her about her husband's membership to a group that wanted to cede from the US! Abe Lincoln said there is no more traitorous act then secession, yet no major news network even brought it up... Yet the Obama's pride in country was questioned at every turn..

How about when he was labeled as "naive" for wanted to talk to our enemies and saying it was okay to take out Bin Laden in Pakistan.

Not to mention how every single CNN debate in the primaries was analyzed by a group of ex-Clinton people - Begala, Carville, Brazille and others... Gee I wonder why they declared victory for Hillary in all those debates and the news papers followed their lead?

This whole media bias concept is completely absurd and needs to be pushed back on hard..

I am sick of the conservative media (Fox and Radio) playing the refs (the other networks) to the point that most networks are conservative leaning now because they are afraid to report the truth..

As John Stewart said - reality has a really strong liberal bias...

[vastleft]

Dear Smirking Chimp,

If I decide to sue you for slander, I hope the judge won't hold my admission that my vote was racially motivated against us...

http://www.correntewire.com/when_all_is_said_and_done

Also, there's the awkward business of one of the Correntians being so racist, he voted for Cynthia McKinney. How can we ever live down the shame of our Klan-like ways!

The Correntewire post you cited suggests there is a worrisome consolidation of political power and thought. A campaign of seeding the internet with defaming comments certainly should put our minds at ease about that!

Finally, in case you're planning to take the LSAT, here's a helpful hint: Godwin's Law isn't actually a real law. And in any case, conflating cautionary references to Teutonic misbehavior with anti-black discrimination is just plain weird.

Just tryin' to help.

[Lola]

I used to think Halperin simply took the whole journalistic neutrality thing a bit too far, to the point of sometimes sacrificing the truth for something passable (albeit less so); I gave him credit for trying to be fair. Now I see that he is simply dishonest.

[Ebuka]

Very pathetic, attempt by Mark Halperin to appear objective. This is false objectivity because the McCain had strings and litany negative issues that were never explored. Now he wants to push the idiotic insinuation that Obama was cuddled by the press.
Fly a kite, Mark!

[UrbanRube]

Greg, excellent points, but how about a Digg or Yahoo Buzz button, buddy? I'd like to see this crawl higher on the news sites.

[Genevieve]

Halperin. Pot. Meet kettle.

[plankbob]

Can I sue Halperin for malpractice of journalism? There oughta be a law.
Of course he could always throw himself on the mercy of the court by contending he's not really a journalist. Which would be true.

[Greg285]

Why is this an issue? Why are the media even giving these idiots the time of day? There are more pressing issues in American that what these fools have to say so that they stay current and in the news cycle...Pathetic

[Howard B.]

What Halperin doesn't get is that the media treated Obama with respect because he did the same to them. He didn't feed journalists the usual, stale, nonsensical talking. Obama treated the American people like adults and that earned him the right to be treated similarly.

[Bonlu]

Cindy didn't steal money from her charity, she stole drugs. Money isn't a prob for her, drugs are.

[manyamile]

wrong, Halperin. In my opinion mcCain/ Palin got LOTS of coverage, little of it negative. I thought the press was pretty generous to them. The problem was with the McCain/ Palin ticket and their own spokespeople. I saw John, Sarah, Joe ,Tucker and that other gal EVERYWHERE, flapping their OWN jaws. With its language scrambling, rabble rousing, airhead VP, a cartoon character named Joe, and an exasperated, no issue, McCain who was not served well by his own spokespeople, the campaign's own message was negative and lacking in substance.....
Obama's campaign actually got less coverage, to my mind, because it was less of a freak show, even though the negative artillery from certain channels was constant. Amazingly, Obama's campaign successfully communicated, not because it was granted a boon by media, but because it was the 'grownup' in the campaign...something a lot of voters appreciated.
I personally used a variety of media: print, internet ,book , radio and tv.... as well as one on one discussions with people.... I saw thoughtful coverage, I saw humorous coverage, i saw idiot coverage. but i did not see biased pro Obama coverage. In this case the best candidate worked hard and did a good job of getting his message out, and he had a positive message. People saw it and gave him their vote. Democracy actually worked. Some , though not all, in the media actually did a good job, and reported well.
I appreciated those who managed to report intelligently, rationall , no matter what their personal or editorial opinions were.

[StellaRay]

Halperin is deluded by his love for the right wing. This was the man who gave the Republicans a win on his "Page" for the week of Sept. 15---the week McCain said the "economy is fundamentally strong," as it was beginning to implode. This is the week many site as the moment John McCain lost the election, but also apparently, once again, won Halperin's heart.

[StellaRay]

Halperin is deluded by his love for the right wing. This was the man who gave the Republicans a win on his "Page" for the week of Sept. 15---the week McCain said the "economy is fundamentally strong," as it was beginning to implode. This is the week many site as the moment John McCain lost the election, but also apparently, once again, won Halperin's heart.

[SANDRA]

THIS GUY IS TRYING TO SELL A BOOK AND GET ATTENTION BY USING PRESIDENT ELECT OBAMA AND TO SAY HE WAS THE DARLING OF THE MEDIA IS STUPID AND AN LIE THEY DID EVERY THING THEY COULD TO HELP DESTROY HIM . EVERY COMMENT ON THE SITE I AGREE WITH BUT HANNITY AND DICK MORRIS LET'S NOT FORGET RUSS THE FOOL ON FOOL RADIO IS STILL TRYING TO DESTROY OBAMA AND DIVIDE THE COUNTRY THE SAME WAY PALIN DID I EVEN READ WHEN HE IS THE PRESIDENT THEY WANT HIM IMPREACHED.SO STAY TUNE.

[Denis Campbell]

Wow, I just fell into a parallel universe...

In the tank for Obama? Where was the media on all of these issues?

What if Obama paraded five children across the stage, including an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if McCain was former president of the Harvard Law Review, while Barack Obama finished fourth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once and Obama was the divorcee?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Obama left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama not only became addicted to pain killers but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five, United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989?
McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker while Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing four planes?
Obama was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if the Obama’s had adopted a white child?

I think Halperin is in need of a serious kick in the fanny.

Denis Campbell
Editor-in-Chief
UK Progressive.co.uk

[Reich Winger's NightMare]

Media bias? Really!?!

And just how many media dinners did Mr. Obama throw for the press at his private ranch?

I seem to recall at least one by Mr. McCain that was very well received.

Mr Halperin is a boob. And not the good kind.

[S.A. Smith]

Slate Magazine's staff voted for Obama 55 to one. I think this disparity roughly reflects the bias of the rest of the major mainstream media outlets. The notion that journalistic integrity trumps person political bias is a fiction bought into only by biased liberal journalists. Fortunately, some Dem's got a taste of what it's like to be a Republican when they saw how the media treated Hillary vs. Obama. One of my major complaints is the lack of coverage devoted to Obama's fraud-detection-free online contributions system. The only reason Obama would have disabled the AVS system was to facilitate fraud. Troubling, I think.

[S.A. Smith]

Danis Campbell, what if John McCain belonged to a racist, anti-american church for 20 years whose pastor revered David Duke (as opposed to Louis Farrakhan)? And what if McCain respectfully referred to David Duke as "Dr. Duke" (as opposed to Obama referring to avowed racist Louis Farrakhan as "Minister Farrakhan)? What if McCain's wife described the United States as a "downright mean" country? What if she had said she had NEVER in her adult life been proud of her country? What if John McCain had said that working class black Americans clung bitterly to their guns, and god, and racism? You're too biased to see the bias. Progressive? Try regressive.