Obama Must Be Doing Something Right

Interesting! Mark Halperin called a "dick" for the Wednesday conference. Given that Halperin's one of the biggest creeps in American public life, it's evident that Obama must have been doing something right.

Bi-Partisanship with Moderates

Mark Halperin of Time, a guy who projects an inhuman creepiness while on camera, believes Obama should strain at the bit to get Republican support on finance reform, immigration reform, and overhauling No Child Left Behind.

But that doesn't work.

The Republican leadership has made it clear that they are not going to cooperate. Because Obama wanted bi-partisanship, Boehner and McConnell concluded that bi-partisanship means "Obama wins." They'll reject everything Obama proposes because they view compromise as to Obama's advantage.

What Obama and the Congressional leadership need to do is get better at negotiating with moderate and conservative Democrats while taking heavy flak from the right. Pelosi got her act together after Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts. But the Dems have to keep improving in their efforts to deal with their own moderates if they want continued success.

That might be a good way to pick off some Republican votes as well.

Mark Halperin Goes for the Hits Homer; or Is It Time?

Mark Halperin put this picture of a white guy who's not going to be nominated to the Supreme Court on a blog post entitled "White Men Need Not Apply."

The headline can be viewed as a protest against anti-racism and anti-sexism by a conservative-leaning journalist, an expression of white and male privilege, or evidence that Halperin's world is still ruled by Matt Drudge.

I see it as more of an effort to increase Halperin's blog hits.

The headline doesn't have anything to do with the actual blog post. I bet it was added so Halperin could look "outrageous," stir up "controversy," and raise his blog ranking.

And it worked.

So what's to be learned from this little tempest.

It might be that conservative journalists are in the same boat as conservative politicians. The only way they can draw attention to themselves is to be offensive.

Too bad they're so good at it.

The same can be said for RedState's Eric Erickson's offensive Twitter comments about David Souter.