Matt Yglesias

Sep 26th, 2008 at 11:22 pm

Mr CW

Mark Halperin, the voice of conventional wisdom, gives Obama an A- and McCain gets a B-.






48 Responses to “Mr CW”

  1. scythia Says:

    conventional wisdom, gives Obama an A- and Obama gets a B-.

    Perhaps the sagest analysis of the night.

  2. Hank Porter Says:

    Seriously. Get these things right before posting. You really minimize your impact when you say “A=10, A=4.” Huh?

  3. Jim Says:

    Huh?

  4. Andrew Says:

    That should be Obama A-, McCain B-.

    Has someone been playing the debate drinking game? ;)

  5. fnook Says:

    Try clicking the link you lazy bastards.

  6. pd Says:

    McCain got a B- (and so has to go to Debate lab after school for extra help)

  7. Rune Says:

    If you don’t wanna raise Halperin’s hit count, that would be McCain with the B-.

  8. Andy Rooney Says:

    Matt has obviously been playing the drinking game tonight…

  9. Andy Rooney Says:

    I’m not the earlier Andrew … but all Andrews think alike.

  10. 55 Says:

    Have you EVER reread something you typed?

  11. Stephen Frug Says:

    Matt, obviously your readers have decided that your typos and homonym replacements are not a great barrier to reading your blog, which is excellent. But I think that it’s fair to draw the line where a typo renders the comment unintelligible. (Obviously, *one* of those “Obama” grades was for McCain, but there’s no way to say which one, so the post is meaningless.)

  12. Jim Says:

    I say fnook is one of Matt’s sock puppets.

    It seems like balloons and confetti should be dropping on all of us right now: Matt actually corrected a mistake.

  13. 24AheadDotCom Says:

    I think in this case it would have been OK to simply bring Halperin’s post over here, there’s so little of it.

    Somehow, I don’t think most people are going to appreciate BHO constantly laughing and smirking about McCain in the background. That certainly plays with his low-class, sleazy, far-left supporters, but not with everyone else.

  14. joe from Lowell Says:

    Really? I thought they both stunk.

  15. scythia Says:

    Somehow, I don’t think most people are going to appreciate BHO constantly laughing and smirking about McCain in the background. That certainly plays with his low-class, sleazy, far-left supporters, but not with everyone else.

    I have two questions for you, TLB, but I’ll only pose one right now:

    Why is right-wing commentary so bad? I’m on record about 100 times tonight stating I think McCain won. But all the trolls on the blogs are pushing points that are either a) clearlt written in advance or b) a deliberate attempt to push back an Obama talking point.

    In either case, they rarely bear any relation to reality. In your case, BHO was laughing–not smirking, chimp–only when McCain attacked him viciously. Clearly an act of restraint, not mockery, and anyone with a passing familiarity with human interaction would have read it as such. Furthermore, McCain’s body language was just as dismissive–if not much more so.

    Are these talking points e-mailed you? Are you going off what worked in the past? Or is this really your honest reaction. Tell me, please, because I want to know. The only thing that’s made me feel reassured tonight–aside from the focus groups, which I personally don’t trust–is that fact that the trolls continue to spit lies, rather than call out the problems I actually saw.

    And if you’re still here, please respond, because I have a less-loaded follow-up.

  16. Freedom Fry Says:

    That’s pretty surprising for Halperin. He’s usually pretty anxious to award McCain points for everything. But he’s probably right, McCain came off as a dick.

  17. Aleks Says:

    # 24AheadDotCom Says:
    September 26th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

    Somehow, I don’t think most people are going to appreciate BHO constantly laughing and smirking about McCain in the background. That certainly plays with his low-class, sleazy, far-left supporters, but not with everyone else.
    *******************

    People are going to have different reactions to the debate, but not may besides 24ADC are going to think McCain was the classy one.

  18. kth Says:

    I don’t really trust Halperin’s judgment, and think he’s better at divining the sometimes-unsaid conventional wisdom among beltway types, than he is at guessing how “real people” (a construct he would no doubt approve of) think. So I don’t take that much comfort in his appraisal (Halperin’s on Charlie Rose right now, so maybe he’ll elaborate on his thinking).

  19. mort Says:

    #13…….. yet McCain’s contemptuous refusal to look at Obama was classy??

  20. 24AheadDotCom Says:

    scythia: actually, a Telex machine is involved, and… I’m the one sending out the transmissions to our agents! For, I am #21, a lucky number comprised of three sevens, oh yes. That is I! Ha ha ha ha ha bwah bwah bwah bwah!

    AFJE12 DJEU94

  21. TheF79 Says:

    The whole “didn’t look at him once during the entire debate” has the potential to be one of those defining “Al Gore was sighing” sort of thing. It’s kinda weird and noticable, and Chris Matthews jumped all over it, which is a decent barometer for media memes.

  22. scythia Says:

    TLB,

    Cool. Follow-up: Your key issue is immigration. Why are you so in the tank for McCain? His position is almost identical to mine–and totally antithetical to yours.

  23. The Other Steve Says:

    Halperin’s headings don’t match the script below.

  24. DTM Says:

    Our resident Republican hacks may not be getting the talking points directly. Rather, what we know is that Republican hack bloggers are getting the talking points and putting them on their blogs. So, it could just be that our resident Republican hacks are reading those blogs and bringing the talking points over here.

  25. dbt Says:

    As The Other Steve says, someone fucked up Halperin’s headings. He gave McCain an A- and Obama a B-. Helps if you read the article.

  26. Dave Says:

    dbt –

    Read more carefully; Halperin gave Obama an A- and McCain a B-. The description of the grades are switched, but the grades themselves are accurate.

  27. Gary D Says:

    Look again at the Halperin site – someone screwed up the headers. I was wondering considering how Republican Halperin is and who all his sources are.

  28. 24AheadDotCom Says:

    scythia: the Council has given me a Blue Card, allowing me to respond forthrightly. I’m not “in the tank” for McCain, although I shall shortly be coming out in support of him. The reason is simple: just as I realized in 2004 how bad Bush was and how he needed to be defeated, so too with BHO in 2008. You see, I put country first. Many people claim to do the same, but they actually put their Parties first. I realize just how bad BHO would be for the U.S., something that many Democrats also realize.

    As for my point about McCain taking BHO to school, I posted that around 7pm my time, shortly after it happened. The Council played no role, and in fact I have already received a commendation from #17 for my development of that point.

    If anyone would like to know more, write to #823 for an informative packet.

  29. Dave Says:

    Gary D –

    The headers are switched, but the grades are not. Look closely. Why would he give this a C-?

    Style: Polished, confident, focused. Fully prepared, and able to convey a real depth of knowledge on nearly every issue.
    Grade: C-

  30. pseudonymous in nc Says:

    Shorter Kelly: I’m such a sad, pathetic no-life bigot.

  31. pseudonymous in nc Says:

    And the funny thing is this: Kelly won’t look brown folks in the eye either when he makes his rare, sporadic ventures onto the streets of Los Angeles.

    His forebears are oscillating wildly in their graves.

  32. bbebop@gmail.com Says:

    halperin’s analysis is frakked up. read the words. he’s actually scoring mccain as a- and obama as b-, but he has the names and pictures wrong. you can’t really tell what he’s saying until it’s fixed.

  33. Dave Says:

    bbebop —

    Jeez, how hard is this to explain? Halperin has switched the explanations of his grades. The grades themselves are underneath the correct candidate. He gave Obama an A- and McCain a B-.

    Read every paragraph of analysis (Substance, Style, etc.). They simply do not match up with the grade below.

    The grades are accurate, the analysis is simply switched.

  34. M Says:

    Halperin Copy-Editor EPIC FAIL

  35. dbt Says:

    thanks for the 4chan meme

  36. tom Says:

    …you can’t really tell what he’s saying until it’s fixed.”

    Dave is correct in his response to this comment, but anyway:
    It’s fixed. Halperin gave Obama the A- and McCain the B-.

    http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1845106-1,00.html

  37. Gary D Says:

    Has been corrected – he did give the grades reported to the candidates as the expanded link tom provides show. M is correct. My surprise.

    I myself made the mistake of watching on tv and couldn’t stop staring at the old man with his thick pancake make-up, blinking eyes and odd mannerisms. Did McCain ever look at Obama?

  38. John Says:

    Those numbers are surprising. Knowing Halperin, he’d try to seem “not liberal” and at least give the two a tie, if not, maybe, giving McCain an A and Obama an A-. But Halperin is still an ass.

  39. poliwog Says:

    I’ll bet he says McCain still won the week!

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