Mark Halperin Called Out For 'Disgusting, Pro-Obama Bias' Comments

Time magazine blogger and Hot Seat contributor Mark Halperin is taking sharp criticism, from Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell, over remarks he made at a forum on Friday.

The Time.com blogger has gotten a lot of Web attention since Friday when, at a forum in L.A., he called media bias in favor of Obama all year "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). Here's Halperin's full quote: "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war. It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."

Mitchell has already written an excellent piece dispelling the myth of an Obama bias, and makes several excellent points here, including the fact that the "horserace" style of coverage favored by news organizations naturally leads to a greater volume of "positive" stories about the frontrunner.

More importantly, he posits that Halperin, himself, might be biased. He provides several examples, including this column that I covered during the primaries.



I think he missed Halperin's real problem: Halperin is what Caleb Howe tells me is called a Moby. This is a person who pretends to have been on your side all along, but confesses to now having seen the light.

I find strong evidence of this in Halperin's vociferous use of several Republican talking points, including the dishonest factoid that Obama "spent more money on negative ads" than any candidate in history. He also spent more on positive ads than any candidate in history. Ditto his charge about donors.

For me, though, the most stunning example is the last line of the Youtube clip that features his comments. Asked to ascribe a motive for this supposed bias, Halperin replies,"Their desire to see him etched in stained glass and on Mt. Rushmore, simultaneously."

Of course, a more charitable interpretation is that Halperin, like many in the media, has a glass jaw where the right's accusations of bias are concerned.

Tommy Christopher co-hosts "Unusable Signal" , on BlogTalkRadio Tues - Thur at 10pm, and Fri, & Sat at 11pm. Click here for the Unusable Signal homepage.