I don’t care how much fun it was to read the harrowing tales of various Sarah Palin meltdowns in Mark Halperin’s Game Change, there’s just something intellectually violent about Halperin basically owning the printed record of the 2008 election and subsequently turning it into a successful HBO movie, thus congealing his wrongness as actual history.
Mark Halperin, arguably the most cartoonish and inaccurate hack in political reporting, somehow called dibs on one of the most consequential and historic elections in modern history. Together with co-author John Heilemann, who also has occasionally though far less frequently lapses into the realm of cartoonish hackery, Halperin’s book has become the go-to volume about the 2008 election despite having no index and very little by way of, you know, sources.
The book went on to sell a gazillion copies and the HBO film, featuring Ed Harris as John McCain and Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin won the Emmy for best made-for-TV movie. What can I say? People love political dirt, especially when it’s loaded with lame sports-metaphors and juicy TMZ style gossip mongering. And since as an added bonus it featured the aforementioned stories about Palin flipping her shpadoinkle, it flew off the shelves — as did everything Palin-related that year.
So naturally, Halperin and Heilemann just announced they’ll be writing Game Change 2: Electric Boogaloo. I’m kidding, of course. The real title is much, much worse. It’s called Double Down: Game Change 2012. No I’m not kidding. [continue reading]
