According to Townhall.com’s John Hanlon, HBO’s much-hyped “Game Change” was “everything conservatives feared it would be,” but author Mark Halperin is still pleased with it. It’s not only a faithful adaptation of the book he co-authored with John Heilemann, he said, but it’s faithful to history. Heh.

At the premiere in Washington, D.C. on Mar. 8, CNSNews.com asked Halperin, who works for Time magazine, if he was pleased with the adaptation of “Game Change,” the book he co-wrote with John Heilemann, and if the film is an accurate and fair portrayal of the former Alaska governor. (Heilemann is a reporter for New York magazine.)

Halperin said, “Totally pleased with it. It’s faithful to the book, which pleases us. But more importantly, it’s faithful to history, which is a big part of our motivation and our drive in working with HBO because they’ve got such a record of caring about not just entertainment — the film’s entertaining — but also accuracy.”

CNSNews.com then asked Halperin, “Which issues do you agree with Sarah Palin on, if any?”

He said, “On policy issues? I’m a reporter, so I think it’s my obligation to keep my positions private and to cover people without regard to whether I agree with them or not. So, I agree with her that America is a great country.”

If Halperin really does have such a noble sense of his obligation as a reporter to strive for objectivity, then good for him. It’s hard not to be skeptical, though: Did Halperin refuse to name an issue because he doesn’t agree with Palin about anything? I wonder.

It certainly seems strange that such a conscientious reporter would be unperturbed by the scenes that occur in the movie that aren’t recorded in the book — even scenes that the principal players say never happened. He also says he’s OK with HBO’s decision to focus narrowly on a single section of the book and to eliminate the story of the 2008 Democratic primary entirely. Halperin gives the impression that HBO could have done whatever it wanted with his work and he’d be completely content — because, you know, it’s HBO.

P.S. Please don’t confuse Mark Halperin with Mark Helprin, the conservative commentator and talented novelist whose work you should read before you check out “Game Change.”