MSNBC pundit and Time editor-at-large Mark Halperin was suspended today by the network after calling President Obama a “dick” on Morning Joe. Love how Joe Scarborough egged Halperin on and then completely sold him out.

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Mark Halperin was dubbed one of the Worst Persons in the World by Keith Olbermann last night for the comments made at the panel we covered at USC this weekend.

We asked LAT’s Mark Barabak, who disagreed with Halperin while on the panel, what he thinks of the honor bestowed on his colleague.

“Worst person in the world? Wow.” Barabak wrote us. “I can think of a lot more even worster people. Especially those who send ungrammatical email.”

Indeed.

On the “Insights and Analysis: Leading National Political Reporters Discuss the Campaign” panel at what we’re calling EOVMWHAWCNCon, LAT’s Mark Barabak and Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin got into a disagreement.

Halperin believes that there was media bias for Barack Obama. “It’s the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war.” He declared.

Then Barabak said,”Look at it in it’s totality, at the end of the day did the media serve its function, to inform people about who these two men are? Yes they did.”

And he got an applause break from the audience.

We didn’t know members of the media could not bash it. Is that even legal?!

You can watch the whole panel here.

The final event of the first day was “Insights and Analysis: Leading National Political Reporters Discuss the Campaign” panel. And yes, all panel’s names were also long descriptions. It was, after all “ELECTION 2008: Obama vs. McCain: What Happened and What Comes Next?” conference that we will call EOVMWHAWCNCon for short.

You can watch all the panels here.

The final panel had Mark Halperin of Time, John Heilemann of New York Magazine, Mark Barabak or LAT, Mike Allen, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei all of Politico.

During the Q&A the question was floated who would be the next Tim Russert. Who will be the next television journalist to vet future candidates?

Mike Allen said the names John King of CNN, Gwen Ifill and Chuck Todd. John Harris offered up Chris Matthews. Then Mike Allen noted that NY Observer had also mentioned John Harris as a possible replacement.

Well, they call it a ‘post-election conference’. Not quite as catchy. From their site:

The Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and The USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, in association with POLITICO, will host a two-day post-election conference featuring top strategists from the Obama and McCain Presidential campaigns, national and state political journalists, and USC student panelists discussing the 2008 Presidential campaign and what it means for the future.

Journalists Jonathan Martin, Mike Allen, Mark Barabak, Mark Halperin, John Heilermann, Ben Smith and Jim VandeHei among others will be there. A full schedule is here.