Mark Halperin‘s calling the president “a dick” on MSNBC yesterday made news on a couple other networks.

CNN reported his utterance, apology and suspension at least six times yesterday including a piece from Jeanne Moos during “The Situation Room.” MSNBC (beyond the original story) reported it once, around 10:50am yesterday; Fox News reported the story twice yesterday and Fox Business reported it this morning on Stuart Varney‘s show.

Meanwhile, Jon Stewart‘s take had less to do with the vulgarity and more about “show regular Willie Geist‘s disapproving glare.”

Breaking: MSNBC has suspended Mark Halperin from being its senior political analyst after he called Pres. Obama “kind of a dick” on “Morning Joe” today. Statement from MSNBC:

Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable.　 We apologize to the President, The White House and all of our viewers. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air.  Therefore, Mark will be suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst.

Statement from Halperin:

I completely agree with everything in MSNBC’s statement about my remark. I believe that the step they are taking in response is totally appropriate. Again, I want to offer a heartfelt and profound apology to the President, to my MSNBC colleagues, and to the viewers. My remark was unacceptable, and I deeply regret it.

Update: Statement from TIME Magazine:

Mark Halperin’s comments on air this morning were inappropriate and in no way reflective of TIME’s views. We have issued a warning to him that such behavior is unacceptable. Mark has appropriately apologized on air, via Twitter and on The Page.

Here’s the backstory…

Here are two more YouTube clips of the lead-up of Halperin’s comment, and his apology….

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This morning former ABC News political director, now senior political analyst and editor-at-large for TIME, Mark Halperin, called President Obama a “dick” 7 minutes into “Morning Joe.”

It wasn’t off the cuff. In fact, Halperin asked if the control room had the “7-second delay button” ready. Apparently, they didn’t because this is what went out over the air:

“I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday,” said Halperin, referring to Obama’s “posturing” during his news conference.

Joe Scarborough jumped in saying: “Delay that. Delay that. What are you doing? I can’t believe … I was joking. Don’t do that. Did we delay that? Did that work?”

“I hit it. I hope it worked,” said Alex, the producer, from the control room.

The conversation with Joe, Mika, Willie and Harold Ford Jr. continued for another 10 minutes, as the show tried to figure out if the delay, where Halperin’s use of the word would be ‘bleeped,’ had worked.

It didn’t.

17 minutes after he said it, Halperin apologized: “Joking aside, this is an absolute apology. I became part of the joke. It’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have said it. I apologize to the president and the viewers who heard me say that.”

• Video, via Politico, after the jump…

• Update: Halperin “suspended indefinitely” from MSNBC

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TVNewser went to Willie Geist‘s party Friday night to celebrate his book, “American Freak Show.” Geist is the Co-Host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and host of “Way to Early with Willie Geist.”

Some of the notable guests were the author’s father, CBS correspondent Bill Geist, president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, as well as MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough, and Tamron Hall, Arianna Huffington, former GE CEO Jack Welch, billionaire Mort Zuckerman, CNBC anchor Erin Burnett, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, NBC News president Steve Capus, and MSNBC political analyst Mark Halperin.

Fun, casual, and family-oriented, the party mimicked the spirit of the book, which is a satirical look at American politics and pop culture. In the basement of PJ Clarke’s, Geist’s friends, family, and colleagues ate everything from mini burgers and steak to oysters and lobster rolls.

TVNewser’s video is after the jump with comments from Geist’s dad, Hall, Scarborough, the author himself, and Geist’s uncle Bert. Read more

MSNBC has named TIME magazine senior political analyst and editor-at-large Mark Halperin its new senior political analyst.

Halperin, who also writes TIME.com’s “The Page” blog, will stay on in his roles with the magazine.

Halperin has considerable background in TV news. He spent 20 years at ABC News, 10 of which as the network’s political director. he also appeared on-air regularly for ABC and started ABCNews.com’s “The Note.” Earlier this year, Halperin co-authored Game Change, which was a NYT bestseller.

The new MSNBC hire was also CNN’s senior political analyst in 2008.

Halperin made his first appearance in the new position at the top of today’s “Morning Joe.”

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough was the moderator for a sit-down with the authors of “Game Change” the new book about the 2008 election from Mark Halperin, former ABC News political director, now with TIME and John Heilemann of New York Magazine. Mediabistro.com had the event covered with Joe Ciarallo of PRNewser, Amanda Ernst, editor of FishbowlNY and GalleyCat editor Jason Boog in the room.

About political life in Washington, DC, Scarborough, the former congressman, joked, “You can lie to the press, that’s good sport, but you can’t lie to each other.” Scarborough was talking about how the McCain campaign had lied to him on the early morning of Aug. 29, 2008 — the day Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain’s running mate.

• FishbowlNY: Game Change Authors Talk Reporting, Reaction To Their Book

• GalleyCat: Halperin Poses with NYT Bestseller List – Game Change at #1

• PRNewser: Halperin To PR: Know ‘When To Fight And When To Let Go’

All three cablers are covering President Barack Obama‘s remarks today at the National Archives about Gitmo, but another major political speech is lurking. Former VP Dick Cheney is slated to speak about national security at the American Enterprise Institute right when Obama finishes, where the audience is currently watching the President’s remarks. Mark Halperin dubs it a “Thursday Showdown.” Check out the oversize ticker employed by Fox News to tease Cheney’s remarks:

FishbowlLA’s Tina Dupuy spent Friday at what she’s calling EOVMWHAWCNCon — the Politico.com conference that looked back at the election and ahead to how the Obama administration will lead.

The final panel included Mark Halperin of Time, John Heilemann of New York Magazine, Mark Barabak of the LA Times, and Mike Allen, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei of Politico discussing the campaign.

During the Q&A the question of who will be the next Tim Russert came up. See what these journos thought.

And check out all of FBLA’s coverage of the conference here. It’s politics, left coast style.

This morning on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, the roundtable made their predictions as to the outcome of Tuesday night.

Mark Halperin, Time Magazine
Electoral Vote — 349 Obama
Senate — 59 Democratic seats
House — Democrats net 28 House seats

Matthew Dowd, former Republican strategist:
Electoral Vote — 338 plus Obama
Senate — 8 plus pick up for Democrats
House — 17 plus pickup for Democrats

George Will, ABC News contributor:
Electoral Vote — 378 Obama
Senate — 8 pickups for the Democrats
House — 21 pickups for the Democrats

Donna Brazile, former Democratic strategist:
Electoral Vote — Obama 343
Senate — Democrats 59 plus runoff
House — Democrats pick up 29

George Stephanopoulos:
Electoral Vote — 353 Obama
Senate — 58, or 59 if there’s a run-off in Georgia.
House — 264 House Democrats (+28)

For what it’s worth Pres. Clinton won 370 electoral votes in 1992, 379 electoral votes in 1996. Pres. Bush won 271 electoral votes in 2000 and 286 electoral votes in 2004.

In addition to Lara Logan‘s appearance on CNN’s Reliable Sources, another segment stood out: a focus on bias in the campaign.

Host Howard Kurtz asked Time Magazine (and frequent cable news/ABC News contributor) Mark Halperin, “If a Republican had not taken public financing and had raised all that money, and the Democrat was struggling financially, wouldn’t we see a lot of stories about one candidate essentially trying to buy the election?”

Halperin didn’t hold back:

We would. We’d also see a lot of stories about his going back on his word saying that he would accept the public money and would reach out to Senator McCain to try to work out a deal. So I think this is a case of a clear, unambiguous double standard, and any reporter who doesn’t ask themselves, ‘Why is that, why would it be different if it’s a Republican?’ I think is doing themselves and our profession and our democracy a disservice.

• Earlier: TVNewser interviewed Halperin at the CNN/TIME Politics ’08 conference, where he called the press “irresponsible” for their coverage during the campaign. Click continued to see that interview…

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