At least according to David Axelrod...
Axelrod condemned the remark, but he also took the high road, suggesting it was likely a “mistake” that shouldn’t be seen as representative of Halperin’s career.
“What he said was obviously stupid and tasteless, and he exercised poor judgment,” Axelrod said. “I think he’d be the first to acknowledge that. I strongly disagree with his analysis. But I’ve known him for decades. he’s a decent person and a good journalist. I’m sure that no one regrets this more than he does.”
....
“I’m not going to comment on a network’s hiring and firing policies,” he said. “But I do think you have to take into account who the guy is and what he’s done over the long course of his career. While I disagree with him, and while he clearly made a mistake here, I don’t think it characterizes the sweep of his career.”
So see...everyone can calm down. Halperin is a good journalist who just slipped up.
Good journalist? Is Mr. Axelrod grading on a curve?
Being a professional observer of the "horse race" is bad enough, but Halperin doesn't even understand the horse-race element of politics. He fails at being a hack. He's too dumb to correctly parrot conventional wisdom. He is pretty sure Sarah Palin and Donald Trump are 2012 front-runners. He thought "suspending his campaign" to fix the economy and not knowing how many houses he has were both huge messaging victories for John McCain. He wrote a book about how to win in 2008 that predicted everything Hillary did, but in his world it all worked. He thought Bush's political comeback would come any day now throughout the entirety of the years 2006-2008. He can't interpret polls or see through the spin of GOP consultants who are much smarter than he. If I were revising the Hack list I'd put him above No. 1.
Boy...the village sure knows how to circle the wagons. It also goes to show how Administration insiders view analysts like Halperin. A better question is why would Axelrod feel inclined to come to his rescue? Do journalists always protect other journalists?
This village thing is tremendously curious.