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Oh my, the nation may need to draw down on its strategic reserves of smelling salts and fainting couches.
What else can it do when one of the nation’s most self-righteous/important bozos, the man Time Magazine hired to be an “editor at large,” and whom MSNBC calls a “senior political analyst,” gave us this grownup assessment of the President of the United States:
“I thought he was a dick yesterday,” Halperin, who also is a senior political analyst for MSNBC, said on Morning Joe, referring to the President’s conduct during his press conference.
That sent Joe Scarborough, worried about losing his Pod People viewers, all atwitter. Here’s the report by Politico, home of more Poddies and Zombies than Halperin can count:
Host Joe Scarborough hoped to prevent the comment from being broadcast, saying, “Delay that. Delay that. What are you doing? I can’t believe… don’t do that. Did we delay that?”
Just minutes later, Halperin quickly apologized to the president and viewers for his choice of words. “Joking aside, this is an absolute apology. I shouldn’t have said it. I apologize to the president and the viewers who heard me say that,” Halperin said.
“We’re going to have a meeting after the show,” Scarborough said.
So what was twelve year old Halperin complaining about? It seems the President chastized the GOP leaders for insisting we slash the deficits via egregious cuts in spending on worthwhile programs, while protecting unwarranted tax breaks for rich people and prosperous corporations and risking default on US credit. Well, no wonder Mark was upset. Who wouldnt be angered to hear John Boehner and that nice Mitch McConnell called out for being cynical, irresponsible, inhumane jerks?
I don’t see how the Beltway can recover from this if men like Halperin have to apologize. Can grownup journalism survive if senior political analysts are not allowed to behave like unpromising adolescents and resort to naughty potty talk while pretending to cover important national issues?
This could be the end of journalism as we know it. [About time.]
Updates: Reactions now coming in from scandalized journalists:
Atrios says naughty things. I’m sending him a bar of soap.
MSNBC suspends Halperin indefinitely
In a statement, MSNBC said that Mark Halperin will be “suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst” for his comments about President Obama.
Misc. Tweets:
[Censored]
TNR’s Jonathon Chait begins with “the merits of Halperin’s politcal commentary skills aside . . .” Uh, the merits of Halperin’s commentary skills are precisely why he should have been dumped before.
Salon’s Alex Pareene gets it right.
76 Comments
I got my pearls and I know how to clutch ‘em!
One can always count on both Halperin and Scarborough to defend America’s poor helpless powerless rich people and corporations against the vicious and unceasing onslaughts of Kenyan Socialists like Barry Soetero Guevara Obama.
Seriously: So the only objection JoeScar had was that Halperin used the word “dick”? He didn’t object to reaming Obama out for actually insisting the GOP raise taxes on the rich instead of just slashing Medicare to ribbons?
Mark Halperin should know a dick when he sees one. So why hasn’t he called out “Dead Woman In My Office” Scarborough?
Put Emptywheel back on MSNBC…she’ll say the good stuff like blowjob. “Dick’ is so dull.
BTW, isn’t Dick Cheney telling someone to go fuck himself on the hallowed floors on Congress a tad more serious?
You win the prize. I was wondering how long it would take to get that comment. Of course, Halperin only put his foot in his mouth.
From the Huffpost account, sounds like the executive producer needs to go back to the Connecticut School of Broadcasting or wherever he came from.
Halperin first asked host Joe Scarborough, “Are we on the seven-second delay?” implying that he wanted to speak freely but not have his comments broadcast.
Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski assured Halperin that he could speak freely and anticipated a controversial remark…
Halperin apologized after the hosts realized that the show’s new executive producer was not familiar with the seven-second delay button.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/30/mark-halperin-calls-obama-a-dick_n_887604.html
twelve year old
cynical, irresponsible, inhumane jerks
Too funny. You just can’t make this shit up!
The “fourth branch” of the shrub was on a “hush-hush” mission from Gawd, yellowsnapdragon, and everybody knows that Obama is not a “dick”.
He is a dingle Barry.
DW
Damned liberal media.
That’s because whatever part of a man’s anatomy might also get into a mouth can’t be found.
We should liberate all the “disappeared” people. Killer Joe should bring back EW and Markos and Schuster and Phil Donahue and Cindy Sheehan all together. That would be great tee vee.
As I think about it, there should also be a Bizarro Killer Joe Show of Banned People as an edgy alternative. This version could have Orly Taitz and Don Imus and Mark Halperin and Andrew Breitbart. Oh wait Breitbart has not been banned.
Remember, folks:
Calling someone a “dick” on national TV: Bad.
Attacking that same person for not being totally submissive to Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint: Perfectly OK!
But…but…but…Obama IS a dick!
Boxturtle (Thought truth was always an absolute defense)
Late as usual. I had that one right on my fingertips.
(I caught professional scold Mika say they would have a meeting after the show. Not JOkE as the text says.)
Mark Haleprin was looking into a mirror.
Saying we should cut spending on teachers, seniors, poor people and unemployed people = courageous shared sacrifice
Saying corporations and rich people should get fewer tax breaks = dick move
Now Box Turtle, this is Murka, and the absolute best political-class “defense” is ALWAYS the most offensive lie imaginable …
(Indeed, there may be NO rational limit to such things …)
;~DW
Why should he get suspended for what many think of Obama? Quit being such an ass. Or dick.
I don’t understand this controversy. Truth is always a defense to slander.
Evidence: Obama scolds Dirt-Bag Republicans for defending tax breaks for corporate jets after he extended the GWB tax cuts, purposes to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Home Heating Oil Assitance, Student Loans, etc.
Corporate jet tax cuts $2 Billion – Obama’s GWB tax cuts extension $900 Billion = Barack Obama is a DICK!
Yes, Republicans are DICKs also. I guess we need to take out the tape measure now.
We’ve devolved ourselves into feckless children with Hulk-like strength. I read an article earlier about this where the actually put **** instead of the word “dick”. Seriously, we’re doomed.
I AM SOOOOOOOOOOO over these carnival barkers,hucksters…of the ive got my gold,y’all pound sand
TURN THEM OFF for heavens sake dont watch or listen
actually, I made up the 9-0 vote. it would be 5-4.
Mine’s bigger.
Bigger than Weiner’s?
He is absolutely a dick, but this was one of the rare occasions where he *wasn’t* being one.
“Joe Scarborough, worried about losing his Pod People viewers,…”
Quote of the Day.
Almost fell out of my chair on that one. Thanks a lot, Scarecrow… :-)
Bigger than the Big Dick’s ticker?
(So I guess the takeaway here is that Obama only gets called a dick when he’s *not* being one…)
Ah, the last “full measure” of the Murkan Political Elite (which includes the media AND SCOTUS)?
Amen!
Yep, especially cause the cheap ass cell phone camera exaggerates features.
Alice Rivlin was on Lawrence O’Donnel’s MSNBC show last night to dismiss the corporate jet tax break as “insignificant.” What’s $2-3 billion among friends?
What, no ONE HAS RECUSED themselves? Shocking.
Well, as long as it’s among a very FEW friends, the “right crowd” and no crowding … and all that, mwarnick.
We must maintain perpective whilst others are losing.
DW
Where did that “s” in per$pective go to?
If Obama’s tepid advice yesterday qualifies as being a “dick”, his problem is he’s not being enough of one.
Bizzaro world strikes again
Well it is pathetically insignificant relative to what needs to be done – it’s the liberal equivalent of trying to balance the budget on the backs of cutting PBS and Planned Parenthood.
But I’m sure that’s not where Alice Rivlin was going with that one…
yah…pretty soon ,we are talking bout real money/
do you know….38 million people suffer from MIGRAINE debilitating headaches
funding 13 million dollars
not to worry 75% are WOMEN
Alice Rivlin is a dick.
And no, I will not be apologizing.
Maybe we could bring the 20 something intern back who mysteriously died in his official offices while he was a congressman?
Last I heard cause of death was inconclusive.
but didja see Michelle has a new 2,000$ dollar dress(that looks like she bought it at Goodwill shhhhhh)
Took the words right outta my keyboard!! hear, hear! More dickishness, please!
Nah. Halperin was looking into an electron microscope…
Kudos for most excellent photo of Sean Penn… duuuuuuuuuuuude’s NOT a dick.
Obama’s a dick for sure, but what stupid comment, except than one considers the source and realizes the comment is merely *projection.*
Is Halprein in “rehab” now?
20 Billion for air-conditioning US “facilities” in Iraq and Afghanistan?
A drop in the bucket, sadlyyes.
Genuine needs of the people of America?
(The greedy, lazy, no good little people? Ignore them for they know not what we do …)
DW
I wasn’t disagreeing that Alice Rivlin is a dick.
If it were $3 billion for unemployment benefits, it would be unaffordably huge.
i saw that….this country is beyond redemtion imo
hahahahahahahahahahaha,what does his pregnant wife think?
no wonder there is no cure
Well, at least he didn’t call him a poopyhead.
If anyone should have been suspended, it should have been the host since the host expressly gave permission. Halperin shouldn’t be suspended for doing what he was authorized to do.
That being said, this just shows Obama controlling the media via GE with Immelt.
Joe Scarborough appears to have killed in 2001 – the facts are that Scarborough got a divorce under charges of infidelity, then suddenly resigned from Congress, just six months after re-election, with standard excuse that he wanted to “spend more time” with children. Then he suddenly resigned as publisher of his family’s paper, The Independent Florida Sun. Then on 7/20/2001, 28-year-old staffer to Scarborough, was found dead inside a locked room in Scarborough’s locked district office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Date was July 20, 2001. Cause of death: Blow to the head. Conclusion: Heart condition caused her to collapse, fall, hit head on a desk, and die. Joe got the local police/DA to agree to bypass their medical examiner and instead bring in an unlicensed “quack” medical examiner from out of state who wrote his report that there was no trauma to the body that would indicate cause of death but then changed it to say that Lori had sustained a “scratch and a bruise” on her head, Five days after being found she was buried.
Joe’s reward was the ten’s of millions from MSNBC for Morning Joe.
Now how is saying “dick” on the air worse than killing a woman?
Glad they suspended the arrogant little twit.
Actually the president is a dick but not for the reasons Haleprin gave.
For other reasons.
Who the fuck cares? That FDL is not above BS like this says a lot.
Fuck MSNBC, Morning Joe and corporate their scumbag handlers! In fact Fuck corporate America period! We will be celebrating independence day this weekend. What does that mean? That’s the day America said, Fuck You East India Tea Corp and your fucking corrupt King! America needs a history lesson, to remind US what they sought “INDEPENDENCE” from for sure! A corrupt King and his cohorts in colonial corporate crime!
Hey, Cenk is cool. Fuck Morning Joke!
Thanks for the 2×4. I respect Cenk. I do not consider Cenk, part of MSNBC! Yes, Cenk is cool! Go Young Turks!!!! MSNBC sucks, just like CNN CBS NBC ABC, and no doubt the 20 years backwards, FOX. Compromised corporate slime brainwashing America all the time! No Silent American here!
Who’s that in the pix up top… an earlier someone saying dick on tv? Looks like Sean Penn?
Anybody who proudly brags that Matt Drudge rules his world shouldn’t be a toilet attendant, much less a “journalist” on a cable TV network.
Halperin should have been suspended long ago for being an idiot, but then, the entire MSM would be suspended for that.
Saying name of the dead girl found in Joe’s locked office, Lori Klaustis, is grounds for being banned from MSNBC.
It will be interesting to see what saying “dick” gets you on MSNBC
More good cop bad cop garbage. Halperin makes a splash criticizing Obama from the Right and “Liberals” rush to the defense of Obama for calling for less severe cuts and puny tax loophole closing instead of critiquing Obama.
I actually thought Obama was a dick too, I thought he was a “Dick Nixon” as I watched him.
It’s OK for Halperin to be a dick, or to call the president one. It’s not OK for that to be the alpha and omega of political discussion, as if that were all that was important in what a debased Washington is doing to middle American as it scrounges to aid the MOTU and thereby incidentally obtain re-election.
A good guess. I did not know either, but am reliably told it’s a take off on a scene from Ridgemont High.
Talk about quotes?
– President Obama at WH Correspondents’ Dinner last year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWKG6ZmgAX4&feature=player_embedded
In the quote under discussion, Halperin said and did nothing wrong. It’s no more “adolescent” to say “dick” than it is to say “blowjob.”
This is typical Beltway crap, and what masquerades as political controversy in the E.S.A. (Empire States of America).
Meanwhile, not one article, not even a breath of controversy around the Petraeus nomination and his connection with James Steele and death/torture squads in Iraq, or dozens of other stories that could be written, but aren’t.
Ohhh!! Good for You!!!!!
Suspended indefinitely…..??? With or without pay?
Obama is not a dick. Dicks fight to get their way. He’s a wimp.
How else could you refer to a person who is the bought and paid for head of the US government? His actions on behalf of Wall St., Big Energy, Big Pharma, the MIC, etc. at the expense of Main St. are synonymous with anal rape. He’s an organic life form so you can’t call him a dildo. Dick will just have to suffice until we can find a more appropriately derogatory term.
That would be fun, but I would not hols my breath. Remember, IOKIYAR.