The golden era of ABC News’ The Note is finally over. Mark Halperin is leaving his post as chief defender of the Bush Administration ABC’s “political director” so he can write more books that he’ll personally beg you to buy. MORE »

Yes, it’s been a while. But you remember the drill. MORE »

From yesterday’s Note: MORE »

We were really excited to read Fred Barnes’ super-mega-ultra-must-read in the Weekly Standard, our top number-one source for what the important insider types are chattering about this week (after Dana Milbank’s fun new gimmick, which we’ll get to). MORE »

It’s been an exciting week in hating The Note. To recap:

• Dan Froomkin kicked things off on the 7th with a denial that he’s in the gang of 500 and a terse take-down of our “increasingly impenetrable, uninsightful and turgid” friends at the Political Unit.

• Then the Washington Monthly published an excerpt from Eric Boehlert’s book. The piece is a fun collection of The Note’s pet stories that, despite their best efforts, amounted to nothing. Remember the David Rosen story? No?
• HuffPo’s Rachel Sklar, friend of Wonkette, picks up trail and attacks them where it hurts: right in their stupid daily email blast.
• And our too-rich-and-too-thin New York sister learns, finally, of the pain we suffer every day. And we Note: Why the hell have ABC publicists started sending out obtuse excerpts from the Note without explanation? They’re not newsworthy, and, quite often, they’re lies. Anyone care to explain that?

After the jump, we’ll decode today’s Note.

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There are ten people named in the byline — several of whom didn’t rely upon Karl Rove to write their new book. MORE »

The narcissism of the Note knows no bounds. From this morning’s edition: MORE »

Ron Fournier, the Associated Press’ chief political writer, announced today that he was stepping down to do some crazy internet thing instead (new Fishbowl editor?). We wish him the best, as he’s obviously one of the very best in the business. That does not excuse today’s Note. MORE »

Demonstrating conclusively that they don’t actually read anything not written by Dan Balz, Jim VandeHei, Adam Nagourney, Adam Liptak, or themselves, the Note today offers this tantalizing question: MORE »

Whee, fun little joke in today’s Note. You see, they were “leaked” a “private” “memo” from “Tony Snow” full of his suggestions re. improving press relations and boosting Bush’s numbers and various things that Note people care about and/or imagine the White House cares about. It’s really, really lame. We can’t tell if they think Tony Snow is a moron, or if they think their moronic ideas are clever. It calls for Bush to do more brush-clearing, fer chrissakes. MORE »

The Note, today: MORE »