Legal Commentary

Glass Houses

By Big Tent Democrat

Apparently with no intentional irony, Josh Marshall writes:

You've probably noticed Mark Halperin's claim that the level of pro-Obama bias in the election coverage this year was so bad it was "disgusting." I'll leave it to others to analyze what "disgusting" means when deployed by someone who takes his journalistic cues from Matt Drudge.

(Emphasis supplied.) On taking cues from Drudge, Somerby wrote about Marshall:

We’re all Drudge now: How big a Sully-clone is Marshall? In his first update, he responds to a reader who pointed to the obvious case of the Nixon campaigns. That’s why I said the past 35 years, Josh replied. But Josh’s second update shows why he has to go. Incredibly, Josh posts this tired old tripe from a reader. Simply put, we’re all Matt Drudge now:

E-MAIL TO TPM: I don't want to diminish the extent to which the McCain campaign has mired itself in the muck, but I think you are losing the forest for the trees. It should be noted that for whatever reason, McCain has so far refused to go places that Hillary went in the primary (Wright, explicit comments about "hard-working, white" Americans supporting her, distributing emails with pictures of Obama in Muslim garb, etc. [My emphasis]).

Good God! To this day, Josh continues to air that highlighted claim, which originally came from Drudge—a claim whose absurdity became clear within about ten minutes. (As an adept of The Cult of the Offhand Comment, Josh is also eager to throw in the "hard-working, white" quote.)

It is obvious that Mark Halperin is a hack. But he is not the only hack around.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on November 25, 2008 (boomark / email).