How Can We Forget You Ever Existed If You Won’t Go Away?
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“Siri, who is, with the possible exceptions of Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, the very last media person whose thoughts about Joe Biden I’d like to hear?”
Mark Halperin swears he’s changed his personal conduct since he was accused of sexually harassing or assaulting a dozen women, and I certainly hope that is true. But his public conduct as a political pundit, which is also important, has not changed.
On Thursday, Halperin appeared on Sirius XM radio with host Michael Smerconish, a prominent #MeToo critic, and said he’s sorry for how he’s hurt women and said he understands now why “it is so painful for a woman or a man in the workplace to be harassed by someone.”
Halperin is accused of masturbating in front of a young woman, pressing an erection through his clothes onto three others and slamming a woman into a wall, among other things, while he was the political director of ABC news. Halperin denied these specific accusations, but apologized at the time to women he said he “mistreated.”
He launched into an assessment of the 2020 Democratic field and made a series of sexist assessments and omissions that were the hallmark of his commentary for many years.
For example, throughout the episode, he offered his thoughts on a number of the men in the race, but none of the women. His assessments weren’t all positive, but by talking about just male candidates, he defined the scope of who he thinks is important and who is not. Given this was his first attempt to rehabilitate himself, it was a glaring omission.
He also downplayed Joe Biden’s problematic history with women, kicking things off saying that the coverage is “a bit of a distraction.”
Sure, Mark Halperin is a horrible person but on the other hand his work was worthless crap that had an actively malign influence on American politics so…wait, I guess there’s not really a dilemma here, is there? Anyway, I wonder which media outlet will decide that giving Halperin a six-figure sinecure will be a real game-changer that will be a double down on steroids.