Halperin apologizes for putting "Pussy" in John Edwards' mouth.

[Maddy McCall]

02/13/08 3:07 PM

Time magazine's senior political analyst and editor at large Mark Halperin, often criticized as a Republican mouthpiece, discovered the dangers of trying to speak for the other party today. A cryptic non-apology on Haperin's The Page quietly seeks to make it all go away.

"I'm sorry," Halperin writes. "In a live radio interview this week, I used a word I shouldn't have. The fact that I was conveying other people's words is no excuse for my lapse in judgment. It won't happen again."

What word—surely, it's not "pimped"—could Halperin be referring to, and in what context? That would be the word he used to describe Bill Clinton's attitudes about Barack Obama on Barbara Walters' radio show Monday. Asked by The View executive producer and Walters business partner Bill Geddie whether it's true that coveted endorser John Edwards doesn't like Hillary Clinton, Halperin responded ...

"Yes, that's right. And I can tell you, he's really skeptical of her ability to be the kind of president he wants. But, he kinda thinks Obama is....he thinks Obama is kind of a pussy ... He has real questions about Obama's toughness, his readiness for the office ... he has real doubts about Obama, not just as a president, but as a general election candidate...."

In short, Halperin is owning up to and apologizing for putting "pussy" in Edwards' mouth.

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/02/times-halperin-sorry-john-edwards-thinks-obama-is-a-pussy.php