KURTZ: Mark Halperin, you repeatedly refer in the book to political coverage of politics campaign as "the freak show". If it is a free show, whose fault is that?
HALPERIN: Well, it's the fault of everybody involved in the process. It's the fault of the polarized system we have driven by politicians and activists and interest groups who have every incentive, we write in the book, to be polarizing, to be negative, to not care about substance.
It's the fault also, though, of the press, which began the old media has lost its way, infected too often by the new media, which cares more about gossip and scandal and attack. And it's the fault, frankly, of voters and readers and viewers who don't demand yet, at least, a type of dialogue in our country which is one in which facts do matter and where attack politics and polarizing politics aren't the order of the day.
There's a lot of blame to go around, and we do try to be optimistic. But the current trend lines are all in that direction.
We make it very clear in the book, again, that this system in presidential politics favors conservatives. They have got every incentive to keep it going, and liberals are pretty much now following that same passing.
Consider that this comes from the guy who writes The Note. I need a drink.