What made the revelation of Mark Halperin's perviness somewhat surprising is that he always came across as a fairly dull, straightlaced guy. We now know he was anything but that, his on-air persona suggested he was something of a "voice of reason" when it came to discussing politics.
Former New Republic writer Eve Fairbanks has a very different perspective on that, and I want to share it with you because she's speaking to an issue that has bothered me for a very long time. It's about how so much of what passes as reporting in the political world is in fact little more than trivia and gossip - things presented as monumentally important when in fact they are nothing of the sort.