This whole Obama/Palin/lipstick smear is infuriating. John McCain in running on the strength of his character, but what kind of character is it to approve campaign messages that lie and distort the facts about your opponent? Worse still, though, is the media's playing along. It's one thing to report events as they occur; that's called news. But the endless bloviating is shameful, and yet another sign of the drop in quality of the work done by the mainstream media. Thankfully, Time's Mark Halperin has broken ranks with some clear-thinking. Here's how he chastised his peers on CNN last night:
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, listen, you can say all you want, John McCain said this about Hillary's health care proposal. But it was still foolish for Barack Obama to say because every night is precious for him, Anderson, in terms of getting his message out.
This is one night lost on your program where his message got muffled by this silliness over lipstick on a pig.
COOPER:Mark, you're shaking your head.
MARK HALPERIN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Stop the madness. I think, with all due respect to the program's focus on, listen to David just said. I think this is the press just absolutely playing into the McCain campaign's crocodile tears.
COOPER: Crocodile tears.
HALPERIN: Yes.
COOPER: They knew exactly what it is.
HALPERIN: They knew exactly what he was saying. It's an expression. And this is a victory for the McCain campaign in the sense that every day they can make this a pig fight in the mud. It's good for them because it's reducing Barack Obama's message even more.
But I think this is a low point in the day and one of the low days of our collective coverage of this campaign. To spend even a minute on this expression, I think, is amazing and outrageous.
COOPER: Let's move on.
Yes, please, let's!
