He said Matt Drudge and Karl Rove held the key to the presidency. His last book was embarrassingly wrong. Barack Obama won by studiously ignoring his advice. Someone put Mark Halperin in pictures!

Obviously we live in a cruel and absurd universe of well-rewarded idiocy and undeserved second chances, but if we didn't, these are the ten people you'd meet in the nu-depression's breadlines.

Time contributor and (decidedly former) constructor of DC press corps conventional wisdom Mark Halperin told a forum recently that the pro-Obama bias displayed by the media this campaign season was "disgusting." "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage," he added. You know who agrees with him? Al-Qaeda! Earlier this month, al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri invoked Malcolm X and called our president-elect a "house negro." Apparently, the international press did not take this criticism seriously, and al-Zawahiri was roundly mocked for tryna start shit. Al-Qaeda message boards are dismayed!

Honestly? We'd rather read a book-length history of the Hillary Clinton campaign written by Josh Green than read another word about McCain and Obama. But let's take a look at the people currently working on their own novelistic takes on the waking nightmare that has been 2008 thus far! The Observer reports on the contenders: Michael Takiff, on oral historian. He's writing a Bill Clinton biography (though maybe it's been shelved). He's a Nation-contributing lefty, who once also tried to write a book about George McGovern. You might be able to guess how his book would read. Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. Balz, the consummate Washington Post political correspondent, has been following both campaigns around and probably has the sources to get some good material for a quickie book. It's up to Haynes Johnson, the former civil rights reporter who now writes big grand sweeping statement books about how it's "the age of" something or other, to give it a cohesive narrative. That narrative will probably be pretty middle-of-the-road. And Johnson is probably too old to get THE INTERNET. But maybe it'll be good? Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Halperin writes The Page for Time. Before that, he wrote The Note for ABC. He became the King of the Washington Press Corps in the '90s when he underminded Clinton and the liberals all the time and sucked Drudge's cock incessantly. He's so far outside reality now that his last book was on how the next president would have to heed the words of Karl Rove and worship at the altar of Drudge. His blog is unreadable and he was dead wrong on the Biden pick, even though he erased the entry and tried to pretend he had it too. Heilmann, though, is the very very good New York Magazine political writer. John, find a different co-author and we're right there with you!

Timesmen Nagourney and Zeleny say Obama's found a running mate. But he has only told his closest advisers. And not the person he chose, even! Who is either Evan Bayh (ugh), Tim Kaine (eh), or Joe Biden (!). He will text you, his supporters, whenever he decides to make his announcement. Last night political expert hack loser Mark Halperin said Nagourner and Zeleny (and Drudge!) were all flat-out wrong but now he must've have been informed that they're right so he took his post down and replaced it with something about how Joe Biden is the guy (and when it turns out to be Bayh he'll take that down too.) Morning! [NYT]

Time's Mark Halperin, the most singularly irritating and negatively influential "reporter" in politics today, got a "mid- to high- six-fugre sum" to write a book about the ongoing presidential campaign with New York's John Heilemann. Hey, Mark already wrote a book about the 2008 campaign! It was called The Way To Win and it was about how "The Way To Win" was to emulate Karl Rove and suck Matt Drudge's cock. That book was sooo prescient and successful—remember how well that strategy worked for Hillary Clinton? Hell, remember how well that strategy worked for Mark's book sales? [NYP]

Noted asshole and Time "senior political analyst" Mark Halperin said, on Barbara Walters' satellite radio program, that John Edwards thinks Barack Obama "is kind of a pussy." We'd be shocked and appalled if Time hadn't hired Halperin from ABC precisely because of his skill with utter bullshit. They also employ Ana Marie Cox, who has called every candidate a pussy (or worse) at some point. Time political coverage: it's edgy! Until they print it, stripped of each edgy author's edge. (Halperin has already apologized, smugly.) After the jump, Halperin discusses his work as Bob Dole's speechwriter in 1996, his primary qualifications for "analyzing" politics. [Don't Quote Me via Romenesko]

Time has just hired former ABC News political director Mark Halperin. So that whole thing where we made fun of Eric Alterman for being all, "Time magazine is a right-wing talking point rag that only hires Republicans?" Maybe he was right! Halperin, while not a Republican, is the next best thing: Someone so cowed by accusations of "liberal media bias" that he will bend over backwards and fold himself into some kind of geometrically-improbable shape to give the G.O.P. the right to define the story. So keep shouting about this, Alterman, you may yet get that job at Time you so obviously covet.