We all know that Mark Halperin is about the biggest douche out there, but this latest stunt is beyond the pale even for him:
But the other feature of “The Page” are the exceedingly juvenile photo illustrations that Halperin provides for his stories. For example! Take Mary Landrieu! She’s a moderate Democrat from Louisiana who was holding out on health care reform until she accepted a porky deal that would bring an additional $100 million of Medicaid subsidies to her state. There are lots of ways to serve up this news story! And there are lots of creative ways to put it together for web trawlers. How about, “Mary, Mary, quite contrary?” or, if you’re old-school retro, “Mary, Mary, why you buggin’?” Or you could just decide that the best thing to do is be straight about it. Not Halperin, though! Here’s the imaginative Photoshop that went along with his “story.”
Here’s how Halperin decided to illustrate Landrieu today:
Yup it’s the old “There’s Something About Mary” routine! In other words Halperin is trying to imply that Landrieu sold her body for healthcare. Apparently this was too much for even Time as the page is now deleted, but thanks to the miracle of the Google cache you can still see it here, and as always with these things I captured my own grab:
The most insulting part of this overall is that Time thinks they can just delete the page. They owe their readers an explanation of how they can allow someone to stay on staff who engages in such childish things. In a time when the media is complaining about a decrease in readership, acts like this certainly don’t help. The best response from Time would be that Halperin is no longer employed there.