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Mark Halperin’s Nauseous Bullying of Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz is a top-tier candidate who could one day be the President of the United States. Instead of getting to the bottom of how he would govern, “journalist” Mark Halperin instead tried desperately to extract a “gotcha” moment discrediting his ethnic bona fides. Halperin’s obvious hope: that the moment might go viral and compensate for the fact that he works on a program with almost no viewers. (Bloomberg TV ratings are not public, but are believed to be lower than CNBC’s — which puts them with the margin of error of having exactly zero viewers).
I get it, some people can’t face the fact that ethnic Americans, immigrants, or children of immigrants often have conservative views. For most other people, it’s not that shocking. Immigrants are hard-working. They take great risks to enter this country. And they are shocked by the amount of people that don’t appreciate the opportunity here and want to turn it into Venezuela.
Like good sons and daughters, conservatives are often influenced by their parents and grandparents. If I was not influenced by my grandfather and father, would that make me less Mexican? I think abandoning my father’s and grandfather’s work ethic and ideals would make me more of an American brat. Since that notion won’t help the grossly biased Mark Halperin achieve his objectives, he would rather use his platform to destroy ethnic conservatives rather than understand them. Hopefully the backlash this exchange is receiving will help him and others to see the errors of their ways. Reading it in print doesn’t do justice the kind of nausea you can induce by actually watching it, but here it is. There’s some good stuff about it on Hot Air too.
Published in GeneralHalperin: Senator, people are really interested in you and your identity. I just wanted to ask you as a historical matter, when you filled out your application to Princeton, to Harvard Law School, did you list yourself as an Hispanic?
…
Halperin: … if you have an affinity for or a connection to anything part of your Cuban past, do you have a favorite Cuban food… Cuban dish?
Cruz: Oh, I grew up eating Cuban food all the time, I…
Halperin [cuts him off] What’s your favorite dish?
…
Halperin: Alright… do you like Cuban music. Do you have a favorite Cuban Singer?
…
Halperin: Finally, I wanted to give you the opportunity to welcome your colleague Senator Sanders to the race and I’d like you to do it, if you would, en Espanol.
I remember the years when the media at least pretended to lack bias. Now they are downright blatant about it. I’m not sure if this is better or worse.
On the other hand, it just may be that they always had this blatant bias, but now it’s so much easier to document and display it minutes after it manifests.
yes, looking at the words on paper were likely just as nauseating… enough so that I wouldn’t dare click on the video.
But you left out Cruz’s responses. I think interviewers like this set up candidates with a great opportunity to point out how ridiculous the media is, and if Cruz was savvy, he would take advantage of it.
The last question kind of floors me, though. Why the hell would Cruz need to welcome Sanders to the democratic-primary race? Why would he do it in spanish? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. Can anyone pull a video of Clinton or Sanders welcoming Cruz, Fiorina, Rubio, et. al. to the presidential race? Perhaps these videos are all over MSNBC and I’m simply missing them…
Halperin was microaggressing all over the place.
You didn’t know that Bernie Sanders habla espanol? You know, since he’s a Jewish guy from Vermont.
Halperin caught all kinds of grief over it too.
When you have lost Think Progress…
Twitchy has full coverage.
Here is Twitchy’s coverage of Halperin’s “apology”
Blue on Blue – too good to be true.
Sanders (and Clinton) should be asked to welcome all the Republican candidates to the race in his native tongue — Marxism.
Halperin,”Seeeng yuuur babalu Teeeddy”.
Good Lord what a joke series of questions.
Like I suggested in Kudlow’s thread, I think Republicans get a good chunk of votes from every ethnicity among semi-prosperous middle class voters with wealth to protect. Democrats win the majority of blacks, hispanics, and asians because most of those people are poor and therefore easy to manipulate with class envy or handouts.
The modern Left has made great gains by misrepresenting reality (ex: “Hispanics always vote Democrat.”) to maximize peer pressure (“You’re hispanic, so why aren’t you voting Democrat?”). This is a common strategy. The most effective response might be to introduce some clarity. Instead of wailing that the party is doomed unless the GOP can win over hispanic voters, Republicans should point out how many hispanics already vote Republican. Then have some of those hispanics explain why they vote Republican on TV.
What’s different is that while the establishment media has never been neutral, they at least made an effort to try to sound that way. Now, they’re blatantly Leftist, all while telling you to your face that, no, of course they’re neutral and evenhanded and you’re just seeing things. Right after they ask you when you stopped beating your wife. The difference now is that the sheer hypocrisy is so much. They’re absolutely shameless now.
Is there another Halpern/Halperin in the political sphere I am confusing this guy with? Maybe a fiction novelist?
Do these partisan hacks EVER ask Democrat candidates to ‘welcome’ any Republicans into the race? In any language? They are always trying to get Republicans to be cordial, while they encourage Democrats to attack.
Love WC’s take and I want to see it made real somehow.
“Mr. Sanders, could you please welcome Carly Fiorina into the race, and use your original language, Socialism?
Mrs First Lady, could you please tell us about your experiences in the WhiteHouse and please do it in your original language, Racial Grievance?”
Hillary would you please tell us why you are running for office and use your first language, Midwest Entitlement?
Mark Helprin is a novelist, commentator, and a rather hawkish conservative.
You should see the Seder! Por que es esta noche no la misma que todas las otras noches? Oh, and the matzoh tortillas…
One of these days, I’d like to see evidence that these appearances on liberal “news” and talk shows actually result in swaying voters toward switching party affiliation or at least rethinking long-rooted opinions.
These liberal media programs probably wouldn’t even remain afloat financially without so many conservative guests and pundits propping them up.
Indeed. I find it more than passing ironic that the more nativist (that is a descriptive not pejorative appellation) conservative element’s favored presidential candidate is himself an immigrant. I would hope that would give some pause for reflection but likely not.
I think a good retort would have been, “Well, maybe my familiarity with Cuban culture would have been stronger if my family hadn’t had to escape the authoritarian regime in Cuba. The one that President Obama is so friendly with.”
Exactly what is the point of appearing on these shows? Obama has essentially boycotted FNC for 8 years, and it hasn’t held him back in the least.
These candidates are trying to reach Republican voters at this stage, so there’s no point in going after swing voters even if they are watching (which I doubt).
So the only good outcome is not making a gaffe.
I’m with Billy, why go on these shows at all?
Thank you. I kept failing at my spelling variations.
Doing so is a sucker’s move. It’s like letting Lucy tee up that football and thinking “OK, Charlie Brown, THIS time it’ll be different”.
agreed. If I was a conservative candidate, I wouldn’t step foot on any of these shows. I would have my people thoroughly vet any liberal interviewer to get a feel for their “gotcha” questions and come prepared, if at all. (meaning, only appear on those shows that have a semblance of respectability, if you can find any)
Always demand a live appearance so they can’t edit it. Barring that, demand to be allowed to record it yourself so you can expose their edit hatchet jobs.
The answer is to go around them. Get your message out locally in all 50 states via your own media (and Fox), and make it clear that you don’t need the New York Times (or the local lefty rag, for that matter) to give approval for your policies. If the Washington Post or ABC want an interview, make it clear that the interview is on your terms, and if they don’t like it, tough. They’re going to smear you anyway, so you have nothing to lose. Make them irrelevant.
What of the thought that surviving a hatchet job, and doing well, serves to generate sympathy and galvanizes the base, much like it’s doing right now on this thread? Also, there’s the old axiom that even bad publicity is good publicity (paraphrased). In general I think politicians are pretty skilled at getting votes and there must be some marginal benefit to appearing on these shows or else they wouldn’t do it.
Which makes me wonder why Hillary is so terrified of having to answer questions.
Totally agree. In fact, I would simply refuse interviews with those outlets. Direct them to your statements elsewhere.
It just shows the level of desperation Halparin is operating on, and how little he thought these inane questions through.
He should have said, “eeees no my yob!”
Wouldn’t it be great if NBC, ABC, and CNN had to pay FOX News to air FOX clips? FOX News could be like a wire service for Republican interviews.
Of course, I would prefer more competition on the Right. EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo conducts excellent interviews, as does our own Peter Robinson, but neither is often quoted by major TV media.
I viewed it more as dry satire.