The Time.com blogger has gotten a lot of Web attention since Friday when, at a forum in L.A., he called media bias against McCain "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). 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 here later 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." In a book he co-authored with John Harris last year they titled one chapter "Matt Drudge Rules Our World." Drudge, they wrote, "is the Walter Cronkite of his era." They predicted that no Democrat could win the White House in 2008 unless he or she had a "strategy" to "defend" themselves "against" Drudge. In fact, Drudge proved to be a 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 work -- even though they led him to defeat (in a rout), helped him make the disastrous Palin pick, left his reputation in tatters and took much of his party down with him. Other than that: Good work, guys.
http://www.eandppub.com/2008/11/more-sour-grape.html">Here's a brief video from September when Halperin, in contrast to what he writes now about media bias, hits the media hard for letting Palin get away with her false Bridge to Nowhere claims and declares that the other three top candidates had all been vetted for months so the media better really go after Palin. 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 money 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! -- Greg Mitchell
http://www.eandppub.com/2008/11/more-sour-grape.html