This evening on the Ed Show, Mark Halperin repeated the same crap that’s been an ongoing blight on both the establishment press, as well as the Democratic Party. It goes like this: Anything that might cause the Republicans to flip their shit must be abandoned. In this case, the president shouldn’t accept the Nobel Prize because Republicans are outraged.
This is the same disease of acquiescence that forces Democratic members of Congress to drop coverage for voluntary end-of-life consultations from healthcare legislation as soon as the Republicans make a pee-pee dance about it.
Today, if the president hadn’t won, the Republicans would’ve been overjoyed at the news. Then they would’ve proceeded to yank another disingenuous, contradictory attack against the president out of their fat asses — perhaps he’s wearing too many red ties. Perhaps one of his advisers said something controversial in 1982. Perhaps they twist some line in HR 3200 into an accusation that the Democrats want to pay for birth control pills for hobbits.
Anyway, this is exactly what I expected from Mark Halperin. And his colleagues at Time have done a fantastic job today of writing similarly ridiculous headlines:
Why Winning the Nobel Peace Prize Could Hurt Obama
Obama’s Nobel: The Last Thing He Needs
Then, eject! Eject! The Republicans will attack so the president must cave!
Pathetic.
