WASHINGTON – I was not incensed by Mark Halperin’s man part moment. I wish Barack Obama would show up and be “kind of a…–“. So it’s telling when Pres. Obama is forced to make the Democratic case, a darling in the traditional media food chain blows all decorum on MSNBC.
People who didn’t recognize the language Halperin used to characterize Obama have evidently forgotten Game Change. A political Peyton Place that’s hard to put down, with scenes like the one with the late Elizabeth Edwards confronting her louse of a spouse in a cringe worthy scene what helped the book become a blockbuster.
New details on Mark Halperin’s suspension: An MSNBC source tells me that MSNBC preident [sic] Phil Griffin’s initial response to Halperin’s “dick” crack was that he should be suspended for two weeks, in keeping with Ed Schultz’s recent limited suspension. But the volume of emails flooding in demanding Halperin’s firing persuaded him the suspension should be indefinite, the source says. That’s what MSNBC announced this morning. – Greg Sargent
The report above from Sargent is the only coverage that caught my eye as truly newsworthy about the whole event. I thought the indefinite suspension was way over the top. But now we know Pres. Obama’s supporters exploded over Halperin’s insult, with good reason, making the incoming too intense for MSNBC to ignore. What’s a network to do when the Obama brigade and their viewership descend in an avalanche of calls and emails? Obama’s faithful are paying attention and not afraid to take scalps, which is very good news for Democrats looking to 2012.
In the midst of the Halperin drama entered Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, who said that Pres. Obama should “take a Valium and calm down” after his news conference yesterday.
Now, I’m not going to say Sen. Roberts is equating Pres. Obama with a hysterical woman in need of a tranquilizer, which is straight out of Roberts’ generation, but his remark clearly insinuates that Barack Obama was out of control, in over his head and too immature to control himself without pharmaceuticals.
Back last fall when Sen. Mitch McConnell stated, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” we all knew he wasn’t kidding, but now we see it in action, with Roberts willing to do some of the dirty work.
As for Halperin and his channeling conventional Republican wisdom for a living, the jig is finally up. It ticked him off to see Pres. Obama take a break from playing kumbaya games with Republicans, who’ve benefited from Obama moving the entire political discussion to the Right. But Halperin’s really upset that Obama finally listened to strong Democrats in Congress as well as his base, because it sets up a dynamic he can’t manipulate or control.
Democratic adversaries prefer Pres. Obama soft. Because to Halperin and the Beltway bunch, there’s nothing worse than strong Democrats holding the line against Republican economic insanity. These are the same people who deemed Rep. Paul Ryan courageous for suggesting the only solution to our economic problems is ending Medicare as we know it.
Pres. Obama hasn’t been nearly strong enough making the case for Democratic economic priorities, getting seduced into believing that if he played mediator instead of leader he could stay above the fray and Republicans would meet him half way, an accomplishment for him the result. This naiveté over the last 2.5 years has riled Democratic leaders, but particularly movement progressives, who have to be hoping these latest events have awakened the President to the fact that the only negotiating he’s been doing for the last 2.5 years is against Democrats and progressives, the people who desperately want him to stand up and fight and win.
However, that’s not what Mark Halperin sells, which starts with a facade of seriousness that is aided through the establishment he represents, but hides his insider political petulance at the thought of politics being moored in something beyond Republicanism.
Taylor Marsh is a Washington based political analyst, writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. A veteran national politics writer, Taylor’s been writing on the web since 1996. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her blog.