Mark Halperin is the Village’s Official Idiot

Mark Halperin: poster child for the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

This must be the most vapid, smug, and inane commentary that has come out of the Village in a long time — and that’s a high bar.  My personal favorite is Helperin’s blaming of Obama for Republican obstructionism on the stimulus.  And who can blame him: after all, the President only agreed to make 40% of the stimulus tax cuts when direct spending would have been more effective.  In the dictionary next to Dunning-Kruger Effect, there’s a picture of Halperin.

It’s just a waste of time to Fisk the whole thing.  But impress your friends!  How many egregious cliches, obsession with trivia, and smarmy whines can you find on any page?

Author: Jonathan Zasloff

Jonathan Zasloff teaches Torts, Land Use, Environmental Law, Comparative Urban Planning Law, Legal History, and Public Policy Clinic - Land Use, the Environment and Local Government. He grew up and still lives in the San Fernando Valley, about which he remains immensely proud (to the mystification of his friends and colleagues). After graduating from Yale Law School, and while clerking for a federal appeals court judge in Boston, he decided to return to Los Angeles shortly after the January 1994 Northridge earthquake, reasoning that he would gladly risk tremors in order to avoid the average New England wind chill temperature of negative 55 degrees. Professor Zasloff has a keen interest in world politics; he holds a PhD in the history of American foreign policy from Harvard and an M.Phil. in International Relations from Cambridge University. Much of his recent work concerns the influence of lawyers and legalism in US external relations, and has published articles on these subjects in the New York University Law Review and the Yale Law Journal. More generally, his recent interests focus on the response of public institutions to social problems, and the role of ideology in framing policy responses. Professor Zasloff has long been active in state and local politics and policy. He recently co-authored an article discussing the relationship of Proposition 13 (California's landmark tax limitation initiative) and school finance reform, and served for several years as a senior policy advisor to the Speaker of California Assembly. His practice background reflects these interests: for two years, he represented welfare recipients attempting to obtain child care benefits and microbusinesses in low income areas. He then practiced for two more years at one of Los Angeles' leading public interest environmental and land use firms, challenging poorly planned development and working to expand the network of the city's urban park system. He currently serves as a member of the boards of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (a state agency charged with purchasing and protecting open space), the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice (the leading legal service firm for low-income clients in east Los Angeles), and Friends of Israel's Environment. Professor Zasloff's other major activity consists in explaining the Triangle Offense to his very patient wife, Kathy.

6 thoughts on “Mark Halperin is the Village’s Official Idiot”

  1. It's Mark Halperin. The guy is basically a so-called "moderate" who thinks the Republicans are Oh So Clever (he particularly has a thing for Clintonian centrism and Karl Rove), and generally agrees with most of their arguments regarding the media. He also seems to have an almost personal distaste for being potentially regarded as a liberal - I remember something Glenn Greenwald posted where Halperin went on some right-wing radio talk show host's program and basically abased himself before the guy there, and then kept wimpering like a total wuss when said talk show host kept attacking him as a liberal.

  2. You clicked through and read all 21 pages of that? Wow. Congratulations on finishing. And it's worse than it sounds, since the whole page has to reload for each click (Ajax tutorial please). On web design alone, I wouldn't have been able to get through if it were… if it were… well, I'm going for hyperbole here, I wouldn't have been able to get through 20 reloads even if this were an article by the SameFacts team. 🙂

  3. To Fisk? I Fisk, you Fisk, he Fisks, I have Fisked, I shall have been Fisked, etc. I can conjugate the verb but have no idea what it means. Please advise.

  4. Blech… I didn't bother reading far enough in to be truly bothered by anything in particular. But it reads like the filler from some crap magazine. What's next, his favorite Christmas cookie shapes?

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