I’ll ask you to do this once, and then I advise that you never do it again. Go look at Mark Halperin’s new political roundup blog, The Page. By my count he has only one link to a political story about policy. That one link discusses Fred Thompson’s plan to cut Social Security benefits. Halperin used to be the political director at ABC News where he created The Note.
Begun as an internal staff e-mail by then Political Director Mark Halperin, it was first published on January 14, 2002 and quickly became a must-read daily compendium of political news and analysis for the chattering classes. The Note is now edited by Senior Political Reporter Rick Klein.
The Page follows the same format. It’s all horserace, no substance. It represents just about everything that is wrong with Beltway journalism. We are treated to stories about how Hillary Clinton is a “control freak” whose campaign is “joyless, humorless and lacking in heart and soul.” Nonetheless, they don’t fail to mention her poll numbers in New Hampshire. We learn that Guiliani is doing an interview with Sean Hannity and that his former Deputy Mayors will be doing some prebuttal spin to an attack Fred Thompson plans to make on his Republican credentials. You’ll also learn that Guiliani leads the GOP pack in raising cash and that we are prepared for an attack from outer space. Want to know about union endorsements? They’ve got that. Did you know that Ron Paul is eccentric? You did? Well, that’s about all you’ll know about him or his policies if you rely on The Page. Maybe your biggest concern is the primary calendar…I know I can’t get enought of those stories. This is the kind of crap that passes for ‘essential’ reading among Beltway wankers. Not one word about Iraq.
Let’s take a look at the front-page of the New York Times. The Chinese Communist Party is opposed to liberalizing reforms, Vladimir Putin is headed for Iran, Jihadists are disseminating English language propaganda, America Online is going to lay-off a fifth of their work force, and there is a discussion of political strategy over the SCHIP bill.
The amazing thing is that Mark Halperin isn’t ashamed of himself and Mike Allen isn’t embarrassed to pimp this new site to his equally pathetic readers.
