Let the transcript speak for itself:
SCARBOROUGH: Is the media turning against him? Is the media going to start seizing on things like this to prove that they're not in the tank for Barack Obama?
HALPERIN: There's been a little bit of the paradigm shift. I think that McCain web video might have had the same effect as the Saturday Night Live parody that...on the Clinton/Obama race. I think some reporters recognize going forward if we replicate the way the coverage has been, the imbalance, the unfair pro-Obama coverage going forward, it would do a disservice in the general election. This...whenever I go on TV and say, ‘this election is about a referendum on Obama, that's the whole thing,' those guys with the Cheetos on the end of their fingers...
BRZEZINSKI: [laughs] Exactly...
HALPERIN: ...attack me and say, ‘that's just some dodge, it's about McCain too'. McCain deserves scrutiny and he'll get some. But I think Barack Obama has to find the right balance between this seeming presidential, getting people comfortable with him, and this kind of stuff, the presidential seal, the faux seal, the kind of quote that The Washington Post has. I think that's stuff is dangerous. I think that's the one way he can lose the election.
SCARBOROUGH: People don't understand the dynamics of this race, the landscape, the battlefield, the political battlefield. And it is this: Republicans have had power for 8 years. We've gotten in trouble in Iraq. We've gotten in trouble in Afghanistan. We're going to have a $500 billion deficit. The President's approval rating below 30. He's in Jimmy Carter territory. Right Track/Wrong Track-81% of Americans think we're on the wrong track. There is...so when we say it's not about John McCain, we're saying you could put a Pet Rock, you know, in the position John McCain is, if it were a Republican Pet Rock, it would have all of these problems. It is about Obama, because like Jimmy Carter in '76, a Democrat should win.
First of all, Halperin, bite me with the dismissive Cheetos snark. I'll match not only my diet but my bona fides against yours any day and we'll see just who has the Cheetos stains. You get attacked because you literally can not recognize your posterior from your elbow. You really want us to believe this ridiculous "librul media" bias meme you've been pushing for years? Um, hello...reality to Halperin. Maybe if you weren't so busy eating the doughnuts and BBQ with which McCain is only too happy to keep you supplicated, you'd see that.
As much as I'd hate to agree with the Scar -- and believe me, it's killing me -- the Democrats winning this election should be a foregone conclusion considering just how badly the GOP has screwed up in their 25 years of either Legislative or Executive control. The fact that Obama doesn't have a 25-30 point margin has more to do with hacks like Halperin who will never report honestly on McCain's dizzying number of flip flops, his bad temper, his constant factual errors but will focus endlessly on hard hitting items like unproven, unchallenged and fact-free slurs.
This election is not a referendum on Barack Obama, you hack. It's to the detriment of the entire country that we can't have an referendum on the damage done to democracy by the likes of Mark Halperin. Put that on a Cheetos and eat it.
UPDATE: MoveOn has sent out a political action to its members asking them to contact Halperin and ask him to stop repeating right wing talking points. You may email him at mark_halperin@timemagazine.com and then let MoveOn know your response.
