Hacks On Parade

Despite the title of our blog, we defer to Salon's Alex Pareene in calling out and demolishing hacks with his annual hacktastic top ten "Hack List".  His top ten reads like a who's who of the courtier press:  Mark Halperin, David Brooks, and Peggy Noonan, among others. The most entertaining thing about Pareene's takedowns is that he writes them in the "voice" and style of the "honoree."  Take that!  Bwahaha.  It's definitely worth a read.

Grabbing the number one spot on this year's list is undoubtedly the most corrupt hack in the Beltway hackosphere:  Politico's Mike Allen.  Allen has been called out for essentially trading mentions in his "Playbook" for access to "insider" information and for fluffing his advertisers' causes (i.e., the corporate community) without any critical examination of their claims.  Then there's the symbiotic relationship Allen has with MSNBC's Joe "Joe Scar" Scarborough:  in return for frequent, inexplicable mentions of Joe Scar in "Playbook," Allen gets to appear frequently on the "Morning Joe" gossip fest.  Journalamism…it's what keeps our nation's politics crippled.

(photo: The "winner.")