So I’m eating lunch, right? Well, breakfast — I mean, it’s my first meal of the day so I guess it’s officially breakfast even though it’s almost noon. Whatever you call it, I’m eating and reading the news and opinion pieces — and there’s a piece by Mark Halperin on last night’s Republican debate.
I should point out that Mark Halperin isn’t a total fucking idiot — but he comes close enough so often that the difference between him and a total fucking idiot can be measured in angstroms. He was assigning letter grades to the…an angstrom? Sure, an angstrom is a unit of length that’s equal to 10−10 meters. That’s one ten-billionth of a meter. We’re talking tiny. Even tinier than that. A hydrogen atom is about half an angstrom.
Mark Halperin, not a total fucking idiot.
So Mark Halperin is assigning letter grades to the Republican candidates for the quality of their debates last night, and he gives Trump an A. Seriously, he gave Trump an A. And he says this:
“Critics will howl, but, specifics aside, he sounded sufficiently reasonable and generally informed to win the nomination.”
See? Not a total fucking idiot. A total fucking idiot wouldn’t know that critics would howl. Everything else in that sense is pure distilled total fucking idiocy. Specifics aside, Halperin says. Specifics aside, Trump sounded reasonable and informed. .
Specifics aside, a mouse and an elephant are both mammals. Specifics aside, roadkill and quiche are edible. Specifics aside, turning water into wine is a good idea. Specifics aside, the only difference between the rats that brought the Black Death to Europe and lab rats is the quality of their fleas. Specifics aside, mass transit submarines would be a cool way to commute between Baltimore and Malaga, Spain.
What the actual fuck, Mark Halperin? Specifics aside, my ass. The fact that Trump was able to keep from yowling like a goddamn monkey — that he was able to refrain from talking about his dick and insulting the other people on the stage — that does NOT make him sound reasonable and informed. It just means he was unreasonable and ill-informed in a more muted voice. And for that, he gets an A.
A tuna noodle casserole.
Jeebus Airbus, these fucking people, I declare.. Specifics aside, the difference between Mark Halperin and a tuna noodle casserole is that I respect a tuna noodle casserole.
gregfallis.com 
I am thoroughly disgusted that he now has a show on MSNBC* (who suspended him a few years ago for calling Obama a dick on Morning Joe) with his co-author, John Heilemann, who I like and respect but who I honestly don’t know how the fuck he manages to be associated with the not-quite-a-total-fucking idiot.
On the show yesterday, when Heilemann was talking about how Obama had conducted his presidency with the “attitude of civility,” Halperin had to chime in that “he could have done health care and stimulus in a bi-partisan way.” It was everything I could do to keep from throwing my flip-flops through the monitor. I sincerely hate the fucker. But I really love my country so much, and so passionately that, you know, I want to punch him in the throat.
*Actually, the show is produced by Bloomberg Politics… perhaps MSNBC is paying for it in the interim as it reshuffles its weekday line-up.
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Forgive MSNBC. After all, they were responsible for sending Jeraldo Rivera (sic) down here to the Gulf Coast during Hurricane Rita who, in turn, did a live report claiming the storm at least a hundred times worse than it really was and making a claim there would be extreme carnage because the people in this part of the country are too stupid to realize the danger. That report got him not only kicked out of Port Arthur, but all of Jefferson County (TX), too.
And I haven’t had an ounce of respect for ANYTHING affiliated with MSNBC ever since.
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I’m always a bit staggered by Republican complaints that President Obama has somehow contributed to the partisan divide in Congress. I’ve been hearing it for almost eight years now, and it’s so blatantly false that a part of me always responds with “How the fuck can he even SAY that?”.
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Do you read Charlie Pierce? He had a similar reaction to
the schmuckHalperin.LikeLike
I love Charlie Pierce, though he’s not on my daily reading list. There are a lot of terrific writers I try to check out once or twice a week: Jim Wright (Stonekettle Station), Juan Cole (Informed Consent), the folks at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, the Rude Pundit.
There are so many I could fill up my entire day if I read them all. And who has the time — or the interest — to do that?
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Juan Cole… possibly the most knowledgeable person about the Middle East to whom nobody in Washington pays any attention.
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Also… I just came across this piece about Halperin/Heilemann’s tactics, which I’ve got to say, I attribute more to Halperin than Heilemann.
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I haven’t seen the Mark Halperin piece – this is a steam powered computer and I don’t have speakers for it. But it seems to me that the worrying thing is that Trump “sounded reasonable” because that’s what will bring the votes in. He’s clearly being told by the Circus Trainers to keep a lid on things.
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Actually, I suspect Trump’s supporters aren’t all that interested in ‘reasonable.’
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