Mark Halperin, Right Wing Fanboy

You know what was really disgusting? Mark Halperin desperately begging and pleading with right-wingers such as Hugh Hewitt (at the time serving on the front lines on the war on terror - that is, the Empire State Building) to believe him when he said he really was a good conservative, a fanboy of Karl Rove and George Bush, and the he hated that big meaning Helen Thomas who wasn't nice to George Bush at all, so please believe him when he said he wasn't a liberal.

If it's any consolation to the pathetic Mr. Halperin, I believe him.

From 2006, via the estimable Glenn Greenwald:

Hewitt: "I think my giant unified field theory here is that liberal media has destroyed the necessity of the left having to debate, having to reach a message across, because you guys have always papered over the weakness of their arguments. And so, in essence, by creating an echo chamber, and by allowing them to get away with saying silly things, you’ve destroyed the incentive to be smart and facile."

Halperin: "I agree."

Halperin: "Hugh, you and I have agreed on a lot during this show. For the purpose of jacking up your already sky-high ratings, occasionally you pick fights with me where they don’t exist. But you and I agree about that basic premise. I’m keeping notes here on the things we disagree on."

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Halperin: "If, though, you want to in a casual introduction, lump me in with people in my business who are liberally biased and don’t seem to care about it, I think that’s doing your listeners a disservice. They should read the book and what we say in The Way To Win about how the media’s been liberally biased in presidential campaign coverage, what needs to be done to try to fix it, and why the current system may not be any better with new media. But to lump me in with everybody else, I think, is doing people a disservice, because most of my colleagues, as you know, are in denial about it, or blind to it.
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Halperin: "Let me say one thing we say in the book about Karl Rove, who I respect and enjoy...I enjoy his company. If you look at the allegations of Karl Rove that have been propagated in Texas and in Washington by the media, the liberal media, and by Democrats, and you look at the allegations, there’s…except for the useful indiscretions to which Karl has admitted, there is no evidence for the allegations against him."

"And the ability of the press to paint him as this evil guy, and say that accounts for his success, is fundamental and outrageous. Maybe he did the things he’s accused of, but to have this guy’s image portrayed and defined by things that are accusations that are unproven, we say in the book is really outrageous."

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Halperin: "You keep saying how much nice stuff there is in the book about Bill Clinton. The book writes at length, in fact, half the book is about Karl Rove and George W. Bush, and I would believe is one of the most favorable, in terms of judging them, and not treating them as evil, things that have been written about Karl Rove since he came to Washington."

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Halperin: "I think that the relationship between the Bush White House Press Corps, and the Bush White House press staff has not produced a pretty picture for either side. . . ."

Hewitt: "Does Helen Thomas make you proud?"

Halperin: "She... the questions she asks, that represent a point of view, have no place in the briefing room."

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Halperin: Can I introduce you to my interns from Bob Jones University?

Hewitt: I’m glad that you have one. They must feel like a stranger in a strange world.

Halperin: "No, because within my unit, we’re all about being fair and non-partisan."

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Hewitt: Did [Bill Clinton] radicalize politics by inventing the politics of personal destruction?

Halperin: I think what Bill Clinton did, we say in The Way To Win is, he helped usher in this freak show. The politics of personal destruction was part of it, but it was also making the office of the presidency undignified, wearing shorts into the Oval Office, answering boxers and briefs…

Hewitt: That was hardly how he made the Oval Office undignified.

Halperin: Well, there’s that, too. But we’re talking about early on in his presidency, with the birth of the freak show, in the early 90’s when he got elected. Obviously, he did more to further this along later on through his personal conduct. But the ability of this president, and certainly this first lady, as we write in the book, to restore some of the dignity, personal dignity to the office, has been quite an achievement in the wake of what Bill Clinton did, given the freak show environment in which we live.

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Hewitt: Do you see any evidence of superior brainpower in places like Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha, as opposed to Rove and Cheney?

Halperin: Those specifically?

Hewitt: Are they on the same playing field?

Halperin: You want me to compare those specific four people?

Hewitt: Yeah, because you’ve got two leaders…

Halperin: If I were running for president, I’d hire Rove and Cheney over Pelosi and Murtha.

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