Leave a Comment

Wanker of the Day
Eschaton — Mark Halperin.

Who Woulda Thunk It? Media Says Obama's Post Partisan Unity Schtick Failed
TalkLeft — Steve Benen is nonplussed that Mark Halperin thinks President Obama failed in his quest for post partisan unity. Benen writes: Halperin believes, for reasons that are unclear, that the paramount goal was to win the support of lawmakers who were wrong and who were advocating bad ideas. It's not about what works, or what would actually improve the economy in the midst of a serious recession. What really matters is "bipartisan solutions." Why? Because Mark Halperin says so. Merit be damned -- if Democrats liked the legislation and Republicans ...

More Good News For John McCain!
Balloon Juice — Award winning Time columnist Mark Halperin is back in peak condition and cranking out teh stupid: The entire Republican caucus, we now know, balked anyway. Time’s Mark Halperin, naturally, is blaming Obama. From this morning’s appearance on MSNBC: “This is a really bad sign for Barack Obama to try to change Washington…. He needs bipartisan solutions. They went for it and they came up with zero…. [This] does not bode well for a future that is supposed to be post-partisan. [...] ...

Obama's Fault?
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — Not so much. Benen: In our reality, Obama did make "centrist compromises," and liberals in the Democratic Party didn't like it. Obama did the opposite of Bush's style of governing -- he engaged the congressional minority, listened to their ideas, and weakened his own bill to garner a larger majority. House Republicans insisted on a worse bill, Democrats wouldn't give them one, so the GOP voted against it. Halperin inexplicably believes that's Obama's fault. ...

Splitting the difference between good ideas and bad ideas
Daily Kos — Mark Halperin is still a moron. "This is a really bad sign for Barack Obama to try to change Washington.... He needs bipartisan solutions. They went for it and they came up with zero.... [This] does not bode well for a future that is supposed to be post-partisan. [...] "[Obama] could have gone for centrist compromises. You can say to your own party, 'Sorry, some of you liberals aren't going to like it, but I am going to change this legislation radically to get a big centrist majority rather than an all-Democratic vote.' He chose not to do that, ...

Asshat
Suburban Guerrilla — Time’s Mark Halperin.

Stiffing the American People and Calling It “Principle”
Comments from Left Field — ... The amount of commentary on this at Memeorandum is simply overwhelming. I am going to pick out a few stand-outs here. Steve Benen (yesterday): If the House Republican caucus, en masse, isn’t willing to support a stimulus package in the midst of a global economic crisis, it’s hard to imagine when, exactly, GOP lawmakers are going to work with the majority party in a constructive way. And today, responding to Mark Halperin: President Obama went to ...

In the weeds
The Sideshow — ... concessions even though they significantly weakened the bill's ability to help restore our economy and in some cases meant getting rid of sections of the bill which are highly popular with the public (while infuriating his base, of course) - well, that's not good enough, because the Republicons were still whining that he hadn't produced a Republican bill, which is the only way you can be "centrist" and "bipartisan" enough for them. And being "centrist" and "bipartisan" is much more important than having a bill that actually works. ...

Politics and Media Headlines 1/30/09
Corrente — Mad Magazine (link is to a pdf, thanks to Uppity Woman) HALPERIN BLAMES OBAMA.... (by Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly) President Obama went to great lengths to reach out to House Republicans, trying to get them to support an economic stimulus in the midst of an economic crisis. The president not only offered them more tax cuts than seemed necessary, he also acted swiftly to remove spending provisions -- family planning, National Mall renovations -- that they mocked. The entire Republican ...