Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

We still have time to mess this up!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

This blog will pay for itself.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Not all heroes wear capes.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: Worst Media Person of the Week

Open Thread: Worst Media Person of the Week

by | 159 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Mark Halperin’s writing fanfic again, and it’s really terrible.

(Numbers wonk humor — but sabremetrics…)

Double down! Game changer!…

What some Media Villagers won’t do for a helicopter ride and a little flattery…

Reader Interactions

159Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    What if God was one of us
    Just a slob like one of us
    Just a stranger on the bus
    Trying to make His way home?

  5. 5.

    PhoenixRising

    What if The Donald’s grandmother both had wheels and were actually a tea cart?

    …is there a German word for ‘this fills me with a blend of horror and hilarity’?

  7. 7.

    Jeff Spender

    What Halperin was kidnapped by underpants gnomes?

    Obviously, there would be profit, right?

    RIGHT?

  8. 8.

    Wayne

    My personal prognostication is the RNC will pick and make Trump accept a person for VP that they also would accept as President. If Trump gets elected, they impeach Trump and their man is in.

  11. 11.

    bago

    He’s just looking for 360 feedback so that he can delayer his teamwork empowering initiative.

  12. 12.

    Yutsano

    @germy: In Trump’s mind Christie. He’s been acting as the perfect lackey plus Republican gov in blue state = instant victory in every other blue state. If there can be any possible rational thought in the Combover Caligula’s brain it would be something like that.

  13. 13.

    piratedan

    what if Republicans actually gave a shit about anybody they weren’t already in the bag for…..

  14. 14.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Wayne: I don’t think the House GOP leadership understands that they CAN impeach the President, they just resort to suing him(or her).

  22. 22.

    germy

    @Yutsano:

    In Trump’s mind Christie.

    I saw Christie as more the Attorney General type, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers…

  23. 23.

    Warren Terra

    Okay, so I went and looked at Halperin’s Twitter stream, to see how he took all the mockery (he retweeted about three, not I think the funniest ones; he didn’t publicly reply to any). And in doing so I found this bobbing floater of a tweet by Halperin:

    Must-read piece, including for @realDonaldTrump & @CLewandowski_

    Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays
    I teach you how to un-hypnotize a Trump-hater. http://bit.ly/1tD8S24 #Trump #Clinton

    Now, you’ll have noticed the Scott Adams attribution there. It’s a link to one of his blog posts, and if you’ve been paying attention you can accurately predict it’s chock full of lies, apologies for Trump, and bigotry, with extra bigotry and a side of bigotry. It’s not remarkable in that regard. What is notable is that professional pundit/political reporter Mark Halperin thinks it’s a “must-read piece”. I mean, it’s a piece of something, but not a must-read one.

  26. 26.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Doesn’t matter who the GOP wants, you think Trump wouldn’t throw a massive hissy-fit if it’s not to his liking?

    I just can’t *wait* for Trump to FIRE Reince Priebus.

  27. 27.

    Tripod

    Politico is flogging Jill Stein because… we flog the candidate story lines we have, not the ones we wish we had… or…something.

  28. 28.

    MomSense

    We all knew this would happen. The punditubbies would start speculating on the oh so serious person der Trump could pick to calm the unsettled big donors and party operatives. Of course Halperin is the worst so he went first.

  32. 32.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @MattF: ‘Glorious era of pig flight’ is my fave.

    That’s a keeper all right. As long as you’re not below.

  40. 40.

    Gwangung

    @germy: I dunno….I thought she and Bernie were perfectly matched with respect to their obliviousness to the African American community….

  42. 42.

    germy

    @BillinGlendaleCA:


    I believe that Hamilton suffers from the same issue as Saint Ronald, being dead and all.

    But that’s the perfect politician according to GOP logic: Can’t stand in the way of corporations’ rights.

  46. 46.

    JPL

    @Yutsano: Christie is perfect because Trump kept a fat man on Apprentice because “everyone loves a fat man”. True story.

  47. 47.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @germy:

    Can’t stand in the way of corporations’ rights.

    Or anything else, they can’t stand at all. They’re an ex-person.

  56. 56.

    dmsilev

    The ‘Trump picks a serious politician as running mate’ theory has one minor problem with it. Well, several minor problems, but let’s just focus on this: what serious politicians would want to be seen sharing a ticket with Donald Trump?

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    @Baud: BRB checking to see if that’s a thing.

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I may just give up on BJ at this rate. My type-fu isn’t on tonight.

    Actually dinner isn’t far from being done so I’ll be adjourning for that anyway.

  65. 65.

    japa21

    @dmsilev: More importantly, since it seems that in the current climate, the only serious politicians are Democrats, why would any Democrat want to be on the same ticket as Trump.

  66. 66.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @PhoenixRising:

    …is there a German word for ‘this fills me with a blend of horror and hilarity’?

    Hmm…how about,

    Dabei bin ich mit Gelächterentsetzung erfüllt.

  68. 68.

    dmsilev

    The LA Tomes this morning had a long and detailed account of Trump’s interactions with Indian tribes over his ca$ino business and the tribal competition to same. One brief excerpt:

    “When I have to sit here and listen to people saying that everything is just peachy-dory, it is not, folks. It is going to blow,” Trump warned. There was no way, he said, that “an Indian chief is going to tell ‘Joey Killer’ to please get off his reservation.”

    He also accused a federally recognized tribe, the Mashantucket Pequots, of being fakes.

    “They don’t look like Indians to me,” he declared.

    Surprise! Donald was just as much a racist twat twenty years ago as he is today. Anyone who thinks he’s going to pivot to the center or whatever is probably stupid enough to be a Washington pundit. This is who he is.

    Edit. Ok, one more excerpt:

    Trump went on to contradict FBI testimony without citing evidence and call Miller closed-minded when he disagreed with Trump’s version of the facts. Throughout, he trafficked in racial invective, angering many in an audience that included Native American schoolchildren from Minnesota, even as he insisted, “I have great respect for the Indians.”

    Republicans who had come to bask in Trump’s celebrity began bolting for the exits as the testimony wore on, Abercrombie recalled.

    “In my 19 years on this committee,” Miller told Trump, “I don’t know when I have heard more irresponsible testimony.”

  69. 69.

    MazeDancer

    Charles Pierce always calls him “the inexcusable Mark Halperin”. Justly.

    Halperin, most unjustly, always refers to Hillary’s campaign as “the Clintons” plural. Because he’s scum.

    Though, recently, he has sometimes found a way not to say “the Clintons”. So maybe change is possible.

    @dmsilev: @BillinGlendaleCA:
    Actually, Morning Joe, which I had stopped watching, has become more than fun. It is 3 hours of Trump bashing. Savage, reality-based, almost patriotic Trump bashing.

    Even Halperin nods along with them, a bit.

  72. 72.

    Lizzy L

    @dmsilev: None. However, that still leaves plenty of Republican politicians. I bet Marco Rubio would take the job. As far as I can tell the man has no principles and no self-respect, so not a problem.

  77. 77.

    Helen

    @NotMax: Yeah, they hate him there. Every once in awhile I run into a right-winger in the bars but they spew the same bullshit the right-wingers spew here. I just YAWN LOUDLY.

    Also, too demonstrations down O’Connell St are AWESOME. The first one I ever saw was probably 20 yrs ago. So I am walking down O’Connell St. and I hear a loud screaming noise behind me. As I went to look back someone grabbed me and yelled “look out.” Apparently the Irish had just done something good in the soccer finals and behind me were, like 5,000 drunk Irishmen barreling out of the bars celebrating.

    Now normally I like a drunk Irishman. But 5,000 all at once? Yeah, not so much!

    Good times.

  78. 78.

    dmsilev

    @Lizzy L: That’d certainly be fun to watch, but I suspect Rubio would be more likely to go back on his pledge and decide to run for reelection of his Senate seat instead.

  80. 80.

    daves09

    Rick Parry. Because dumber than Trump,dumber than anyone. And he’s got that charisma thing, as in lacka.

  82. 82.

    gogol's wife

    Poor Roger McGuinn. He’s doomed to keep singing Mr. Tambourine Man on PBS for the rest of his natural life.

    Oops, that was OT. On the topic of Trump’s serious, qualified VP. Palin of course.

  83. 83.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Horrific pick Scott Walker, Trump leaves and this guy becomes president. This guy would cause Wisconsinites to be banned from a White House Run for at least 200 years.

  85. 85.

    gogol's wife

    What if Napoleon had had a B-52 at the Battle of Waterloo? Or better yet, a B-17.

  86. 86.

    daves09

    At least it’s only Halperin. Remember the droolin’ fools on THE STRAIGHTTALK EXPRESS?
    And tweeties thighs tinglin’ for Dubya.
    Seriously I think the punditocracy is in a panic-what the hell are they going to do for the next five months if Trump doesn’t straighten up. There are only so many Clinton about to be indicted stories they can write before people lose interest.

  88. 88.

    Michael Bersin

    The Missouri Democratic Party state convention was on Saturday, there were tantrums:

    Your $27.00 won’t get you into heaven anymore (June 19, 2016)

    I was a voting delegate (Hillary) and had a media credential. Typical of the day: the state party communications staff media minder, knowing that I’d be moving from the media area at the back of the hall to the delegate seating area at the front of the hall (to vote) told me that they’d like me to leave my camera in the press area when I did so. I replied, “You’re joking? [pointing to the delegate area] There has to be six hundred cameras out there.” He wasn’t happy. I roamed with my camera (not blatantly) anyway throughout the day.

    It got worse from there.

  92. 92.

    burnspbesq

    Someone mentioned something on Friday about San Francisco flipping from Clinton to Sanders. As with so many other Sanders fantasies, that turns out to be arithmetically impossible. As of COB Friday, Clinton led by approximately 18,000 votes, with less than 9,000 estimated to remain unprocessed.

  93. 93.

    trollhattan

    @Michael Bersin:
    Were any chairs brandished? Because shit doesn’t get real without chairs and such.

    Where do I get the feeling half those folks would be happy with a Trump win just to show that monster Hillary.

  96. 96.

    RaflW

    To think I used to waste hours watching Charlie Rose, that big oak table, and giant morons like Halperin fapping along about their very conventional wisdom.

  101. 101.

    trollhattan

    @amk:
    There’s a metric shitton of CA mail ballots left to count. They have to check the information written on the envelope (address and sig) then run the ballot itself. Labor-intensive. This is done by the counties.

  105. 105.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    Trying to come up with a counterfactual that’s more realistic than Halperin’s yet still produces Halperin’s preferred result of a Trump victory. Best offering:

    What if Trump and HRC had a hilarious Freaky-Friday-style body switch?

  107. 107.

    Felonius Monk

    BrainDead is a new CBS series with episodes streaming exclusively on Prime Video. BrainDead stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a young, fresh-faced Capitol Hill staffer who gets her first job in Washington, D.C. only to quickly discover two things: The government has stopped working, and alien spawn have come to earth and eaten the brains of a growing number of Congressmen.

    Finally, the real reason Rethuglican congresscritters are useless tools.

  108. 108.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Spot

    @Michael Bersin: Reading the comments on the article about Oregon that you linked to. Wow ! The guy who ways Trump is better because he won the Republican nomination fair and square whereas Hillary cheated. Good Lord help us all.

  109. 109.

    ThresherK

    @burnspbesq: How many delegates would change were this to miraculously happen? I’m not getting any info on this except for BernBusters in my FB feed.

  112. 112.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Thank you again. I’ve shared it with a 4.5 year old who is now always pretending to be Spider-Man. It’s so cute – she did a Spider-Man jump yesterday. Off the couch into a crouch with web slinging hands upraised.

  113. 113.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    What if death was not the end, but the beginning of a new life where we returned as voices on phone menus?

  114. 114.

    burnspbesq

    @amk:

    Mail-in ballots dropped at polling places, provisional ballots accepted at polling places, and mail-in ballots postmarked on or before election day and received by the following Friday totalled almost 2.4 million. Under state law, the counties have 28 days to complete processing and certify results. As of COB Friday, there were slightly more than 1.2 million unprocessed ballots remaining. Climton’s margin currently sits at 460,367, so Sanders would need to pick up approximately 68 percemt of the unprocessed ballots to flip the statewide popular vote.

    The largest numbers of unprocessed ballots by county continue to be in counties where Clinton kicked ass on election day (LA, San Diego, Alameda, Riverside, and Orange).

  115. 115.

    RaflW

    Oh and at this point, I think Trump’s Veep pick may be Eastwood’s empty chair. At leat it would be more qualified than Rubio or Christie

  118. 118.

    Felonius Monk

    In case nobody has mentioned this:

    When Sen. Bernie Sanders, the now-vanquished Democratic presidential candidate, returns to Capitol Hill to vote Monday, he is expected to be accompanied by his constant traveling companions from the campaign trail: the Secret Service.

    Although Hillary Clinton has clinched the party’s nomination, Sanders retains one of the trappings of a top-notch candidate: A team of agents still guards him at his home, where they’ve constructed a small watch station on the property. They travel with him on commercial and charter flights and use a motorcade to whisk him through cities he visits. And they marched alongside him during a gay-pride event here in his home town after the Orlando shootings.

    Such round-the-clock protection can cost taxpayers more than $38,000 a day. And with the potential for the Secret Service to be watching over Sanders through the Democratic convention in Philadelphia five weeks from now, the taxpayers may get stuck with a big security bill long after his campaign receded from the daily cable-news cycle.

    (Source)

    Bernie, STFU and suspend your campaign.

  119. 119.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    What if Adam Sandler made a movie that was actually funny?

  120. 120.

    Michael Bersin

    @trollhattan:

    No chairs.

    There were long time party activists who were Bernie Sanders delegates at the state convention. They were a minority of that caucus. I was told some were appalled by two of the individuals in the four person Bernie Sanders DNC slate which was elected. There are now four Bernie folks on the DNC from Missouri for the next cycle. That’ll be really interesting to watch. I’m betting if Hillary wins the election those four DNC folks will watch their base wither away for the next cycle.

    It was readily apparent that a significant number of the Bernie Sanders caucus blamed the Missouri Democratic Party “establishment” for striking over seventy Sanders at-large delegate candidates from the approved list. Twenty-one were running for seven allocated at-large national delegate slots. The ticked off people didn’t RTFM so they didn’t realize or understand that was the Sanders’ campaign doing. It’s in the rules. The candidate’s campaign has the right of approval for any national delegate before they’re electted. (it’s a smart rule). In my twenty years attending state conventions I have never seen this kind of wholesale striking of delegate candidates. The Hillary Clinton campaign approved all eighty-eight individuals who filed.

    So much for inclusion, eh?

  121. 121.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    @Baud: The first one was kinda stolen, so I tried for something a little more surreal.

  122. 122.

    burnspbesq

    @ThresherK:

    How many delegates would change were this to miraculously happen? I’m not getting any info on this except for BernBusters in my FB feed

    Very rough guess is that a statewide flip to 51-49 for Sanders would move the delegate needle by about 70, from 330-210 for Clinton to 280-260 for Sanders. IOW, not enough to mean anything, but the optics would suck. And it would re-invigorate the Bernie-or-Busters right before the convention, which would really suck.

  126. 126.

    NorthLeft12

    I posted my list of ten best [or worst] Rethug VP choices in another thread, and I have to ask again, Who is this absolutely terrific VP candidate that will save the day for the Rethuglicans?

    Because Americans vote for President based on who the VP candidate is, right? I guess that completely disqualifies Ryan, who could not even carry his own area for Romney.

    I have to assume that Halperin is going for some kind of Tweet record…most mocked?

  127. 127.

    Michael Bersin

    @Baud:

    I’ve attended or covered every Missouri Democratic Party state convention since 1996. They’re usually boring in the extreme for long stretches because of the ballot counting. My spouse was also a delegate. We both agreed that this one was definitely not boring. A significant number in the Sanders caucus were quite obnoxious at the convention. They pissed off a lot of long time party activists who do they heavy lifting. The Sanders caucus out organized and out hustled the Clinton caucus. Everyone acknowledges that. But, I know of several instances where Clinton activists went out of their way to help Sanders delegates participate in the process. In one case, literally turning around on the highway to pick one up and get them to the convention after a car break down. Now that’s being inclusive. The thing is, activists in Missouri politics tend have really long memories and hold grudges forever. There will be a time…

  128. 128.

    p.a.

    Well, given that Berke Breathed is back working, I say Bill the Cat for veep.
    Too much orange? *ack*

  129. 129.

    SoupCatcher

    @burnspbesq: In addition to the US Senate race, there were also some State Senate races where we’ll field both candidates in the General. As far as I can tell, there are only five races where a Dem is not on the ballot – all for the Assembly – and only one of those was due to jungle primary.

  130. 130.

    NorthLeft12

    @dmsilev: Please name the “serious” Republican candidates. Period. They have all shown themselves to be fools, bigots, con men, or ignorant puppets.
    The only person I could think of was the Lt. Gov. from Utah who made a sensitive speech about the massacre in Orlando and the treatment of LGBTs in general. Thats it. And I have no idea what his name is.

    Sad part is that his thoughtful speech will probably disqualify him among most of the Repub base.

  136. 136.

    Redshift

    @Michael Bersin: Interesting. At the Virginia convention, the Sanders caucus was apparently something of a clusterfuck (according to my inside source) because the campaign did the same thing, and the delegates knew exactly who was responsible.

    After a while they settled on passing a resolution expressing their displeasure to the campaign, and things moved forward.

  137. 137.

    boatboy_srq

    @NorthLeft12: Well McMegan all but admitted that GOTea voters in ’08 were counting on McNasty keeling stroking out after the first year and La Palin taking over…

  138. 138.

    RaflW

    @Patricia Kayden: I LOVED this burn

    ‏@jayrosen_nyu
    Does that work, just sending your resume like that?

    @MarkHalperin
    What would happen if Trump picked a popular, qualified vp, started talking only abt need to change DC, middle class, Hillary=status quo?

  139. 139.

    nutella

    @Felonius Monk:

    When Sen. Bernie Sanders … returns to Capitol Hill to vote Monday

    Will he remember how?

    Sanders missed more votes than any other senator during the first quarter of 2016, skipping 37 of the Senate’s 38 roll call votes, according to GovTrack.
    In his lone roll call vote on Jan. 12, Sanders supported moving forward with Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) legislation to audit the Federal Reserve.
    It’s the first time Sanders has led the Senate in missed votes since announcing his presidential bid last year, and he has greatly surpassed previous candidates’ records.
    During the same period in 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) missed more than 36 percent of votes, and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) missed almost 45 percent, according to GovTrack.

    link

  141. 141.

    nutella

    If making 36-45% of votes was “typical” in 2008 then Sanders’ 2% in 2016 seems pretty different to me.

    (edited for clarity)

  144. 144.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @daves09: I lost interest in them back in the 90’s, when that fatuous fuck Starr kept saying on a weekly basis “indictments are just around the corner!” and the wingnuts were all in a tizzy.

  145. 145.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @CaseyL: Charlie Stross’ Rule 34 is something like that. There’s a whole series of gruesome, yet hilarious, murders, and about half way through we discover what all the victims had in common: they were spammers.

    My reaction to this was basically “there’s a problem here?”

  147. 147.

    Ian

    I just do not get this. I know Halperin is a media douche (not intended as an insult to hardworking douches across the country that don’t deserve to be lumped in with Halperin), but was he not one of the top aides to Clinton 8 years ago? Isn’t he nominallly a Democratic party member? Why would he say or think any of this horse****?

  149. 149.

    danielx

    What if the moon was made of exceptionally edible green cheese?

    What if Mark Halperin had terminal syphilus? It would explain a lot.

  151. 151.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Ian:

    was he not one of the top aides to Clinton 8 years ago

    No, he was not, he was a fatuous media nincompoop then too. You may be thinking of Mark Penn.

  152. 152.

    Mnemosyne

    For some reason, every time I reload the page, it takes me back to that hideous picture of Trump in the red hat. Why does the website hate me so?

  153. 153.

    chopper

    @p.a.:

    given that trump’s brain was at one point t surgically implanted in bill’s skull it really does make a lot of sense.

  154. 154.

    amk

    @nutella: from your link

    Sanders missed more votes than any other senator during the first quarter of 2016, skipping 37 of the Senate’s 38 roll call votes, according to GovTrack.

  155. 155.

    Martha from Augusta

    If assholes were airports, would Congress repeal the DCA perimeter rule?

  156. 156.

    MikefromArlington

    Halpin looks like he’s giving trump a prostate massage in that photo

  157. 157.

    sm*t cl*de

    What would happen if Trump picked a popular, qualified vp

    People will wonder why that candidate wasn’t available to be presidential.

  158. 158.

    Anon

    I went to elementary school, junior high and high school with Mark Halperin. The high point of his young life was when Nixon bugged his dad’s phone. Mort Halperin is a great man. Mark was the sort of kid who stole eggs out of the fridge in late September so that they would be good and rotten for him to throw on Halloween. He planned his douchery well in advance.

  159. 159.

    Ian

    @germy:
    I don’t think a living Hamilton would of either. He was more of a Mitt Romney figure than our opera creating brethen care to admit. What’s worse is that today we view Romney as one of the last sane voices in the fascist party.

Comments are closed.