Halperin faux pas mostly puzzling

"Morning Joe" airs at a pretty peaceful time. Most of it airs while most people are peacefully in bed. It starts at 5 a.m. and goes for three hours.

It's a program with a reasonable tone, willing to be a platform for all reasonable political views.

So how on earth could one of their panelists get suspended?

This happened Thursday morning. It's the morning I make sure the trash is put out. Maybe that's when the offensive comment was uttered. I never heard the impolitic utterance, I only heard the apology.

This came from a very unlikely source.

I would have expected an ideological bomb-thrower to make the offensive comment. I would suspect Fox News, although Fox would let most comments like this pass and not suspend anyone. MSNBC to its credit is sane in this regard.

But Mark Halperin? This guy seems to be a Beltway mainstay. He's the co-author of the book "Game Change."

I had to go online to learn the grounds for his suspension. MSNBC wasn't going to have it repeated on the air.

Evidently Mr. Halperin needs to get away from his work for a while.
It's not that he's necessarily wrong to be a critic of President Obama. But what on earth can be accomplished by calling the president a "dick?"

I was frustrated because frankly, what is the definition of this junior high-level putdown? I tried getting enlightened. All I found was a definition that equated the term with a part of the male anatomy.

It's hard to know what Mark Halperin was really trying to communicate. He was talking about Obama's presentation in the previous day's press conference.

Obama scolded Congress, primarily Republicans I presume, in a pretty standard way. I believe he made a comparison to lazy schoolchildren. This makes him a "dick?"

But I still don't know what "dick" really means. Someone of Halperin's obvious education and stature ought to use more precision.

Apparently the panel joked about how the "seven-second delay" might have to be used (to censor the remark). Once you say that, though, aren't you inviting scrutiny? They joked about it but it wasn't done.
It appears someone in the booth didn't know how to do it.

Why go there? Why play around in such a juvenile fashion?

Why confuse and frustrate someone like me, a loyal "Morning Joe" viewer, with language that is both pejorative and imprecise?

If I want to watch something that is pointless and offensive, I can watch re-runs of the old "Gong Show" (with Chuck Barris). Speaking of which, remember the characters "Scarlett and Rhett" from that show? That gag was all about censorship.

"Scarlett" was a man dressed as a woman. The gag was inspired by the "I don't give a damn" line from "Gone with the Wind," a line which at that time pushed the envelope.

The Gong Show act had one line after another bleeped. "Scarlett" would fan herself ever more frantically, saying over and over again "oh Rhett Butler, you can't say that on television."

Rhett would then say "really? Well, can I say this?" Then his lips would move frantically while we heard nothing.

This gag was repeated over and over on that 1970s program which was a good window into the decade. Also repeated were "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine" and "The Unknown Comic" among others.

This was a talent show like "American Idol" but the similarities ended there.

"The Gong Show" made fun of itself. It made fun of everything in sight and not in a healthy way. It reflected the mood of resignation among the American people in the 1970s, a time when "stagflation" and other discouraging things were happening.

It was a time when Jimmy Carter tried having the military rescue the hostages in Iran but the helicopters had a mechanical breakdown. That's the kind of decade it was.

The word "malaise" is attributed to Carter but he never actually said it. Maybe this itself is an example of the decade's fumbling.

We elected Ronald Reagan in 1980 and even John Lennon became a cheerleader, according to recent news reports.

Today we have economic problems but it still doesn't seem anything like the 1970s. I'm not sure why, because the "financial crisis" of 2008 was so bad we needed drastic Federal government intervention.

So much for President George Bush believing in free enterprise.

I checked out the book "Game Change" from our Morris Public Library. I was surprised it was there so soon. You'd have to be crazy to pay suggested retail price for it.

Really, selling one's writing is becoming increasingly difficult in this Internet age. Many elitists are crying foul, with hands wringing, but I consider them to be dickheads. Oh, I'm sorry.

But what is the difference between "dick" and "dickhead?"

I remember reading once about someone who misheard song lyrics for years. "Might as well admit it you're addicted to love" entered his mind as "Might as well admit it you're a dickhead in love."

Is it bad to be a "dickhead in love?" How? Misheard song lyrics is actually a fascinating topic.

When Halperin and the TV panel joked about the seven-second delay, it was like they were going to have to disarm a time bomb (like in the movies). They failed. The bomb was dropped.

Now Halperin is not only suspended, this notoriety will never escape him, to the point where this episode might appear in his obituary someday.

I read only a portion of "Game Change," about the 2008 presidential campaign. I felt I could have written just as good a book by taking daily notes from cable TV news.

The only advantage Halperin would have on me, is he could use his Beltway connections to get a couple of provocative quotes - you know, some potty mouth lines - that could then be used to sell the book.
This is a pretty obvious racket. Bob Woodward is a master.
Woodward writes a treadmill book every 3-4 years. He of course rides the coattails of the fame he achieved uncovering Watergate, in which he basically just found a disgruntled high-level Washington D.C. official, set up cloak and dagger meetings and took notes.

All that was missing was the trench coats.

Woodward worked with Carl Bernstein. Halperin works with John Heilemann.

The one thing I hoped to learn from "Game Change" was how the authors interpreted the significance of Fox News. I turned to the index. Within minutes I could see they didn't do any probing of this at all.

The references to Fox News were mundane. There was no attempt to interpret and analyze Fox News' significance as a highly powerful political organization, which it clearly is.

I suspect the authors were cowed by the power of Fox News and Roger Ailes. Also, many of the Fox personalities are accepted among the Beltway power elite, where they circulate in much more collegial terms than one might suspect watching them on TV.

It's like professional wrestlers who behave like colleagues when the cameras are off. It's an inside game they all know.

As for all us knaves out here in the heartland, apparently what we don't know isn't going to hurt us. We live our insignificant lives out here on the plains while the Beltway, Washington D.C. and Wall Street consolidate power and keep us passive.

At least for now.

It remains to be seen if Bastille Day will come.

In the meantime, the knaves can wonder what Halperin meant by "dick". . .while Rome slowly burns?

At least Joe Scarborough keeps a steady ship with "Morning Joe." Mika Brzezinski at his side helps too.

- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com