Milbank blows his top

[quaoar]

Milbank shows what a thin skin he has. He blew his top at the Washington Post ombudsman, who was defending his story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061800874.html

Here's Milbank's view: "While you have been within your rights as ombudsman over the past five years to attempt to excise any trace of colorful or provocative writing from the Post, you are out of bounds in asserting that a columnist cannot identify as 'wingnuts' a group whose followers have long been harassing this and other reporters and their families with hateful, obscene and sometimes anti-Semitic speech."

[formercia]

1. That little lick-spittle twit

What, he doesn't expect us to call him on his little PROPAGANDA tirade?

Someday we should erect a starfish monument for assholes like Milbank.

A roll of dishonor.

[bemildred]

24. "lick-spittle". We'll always remember George for that one.

These cowards much prefer dishing it out without any chance of reply to having to argue their case on a basis of equality. And notice the immediate and instinctive resort to name calling and pejorative labels.

[Richard Steele]

50. Of course, he worked in "anti-semetic", their word of the week.

The "opinion piece" referred to was one of the most biased, distorted loads of crap I have seen in some time.

The thing looked like someone cut-n-pasted a FreeperLand thread,
and just removed the profanity and death threats (and cleaned up the spelling.)

Dana Milbank is an asskissing lapdoggie, and a DISGRACE, even by his employer's low standards.

[Pepperbelly]

2. I hope this jacks up the thin-skinned punk's average blood ...

pressure dramatically as he mulls over the insults while cravenly, he nurtures his hurt as he impotently stares out of his window, too frightened to join mankind in their stoll toward destiny.

Fuck him.

[liam97]

4. He reads us our rights

and blames us for inaccuracy and exaggeration

[Kagemusha]

3. Ok, this is actually new, serious info that I am glad to hear.

Columnist Milbank as opposed to Reporter Milbank? I didn't know that. Did people here on DU? Even if it's a column, is "wingnuts" a good thing to be calling people? The Milbank response seems to be taking these people particularly personally. I have no interest in what religion Milbank is but, um, isn't launching personal attacks against your readership what a blog is for, not your professional column?

[quaoar]

9. His "column" appears on Page 6

Mixed among stories. It ought to be on an op-ed page or some other page on which it would not be misconstrued as news. And it should be clearly marked as commentary. Calling it Washington Sketch doesn't do that.

And Milbank needs to grow a thicker skin. All columnists get hate mail. Comes with the job.

[spooky3]

45. I think he needs the OPPOSITE of thicker skin. Someone with

thick skin ignores his/her critics and continues to behave however s/he pleases. When s/he's doing the right thing and the critics are wrong, that's good. But in Milbank's case, he needs to LISTEN to what his critics are saying and improve his performance.

[Eric J in MN]

17. I never knew he was alternating between reporter and columnist

before today.

I don't know of anyone else who alternates between those jobs.

Maybe the Wash. Post should write "Straight Report" "Opnion Column" above his articles in red letters if Milbank is switching back and forth.

[Clark2008]

31. Lots of reporters do/

Check your local paper.
The political editor usually reports AND writes columns.
So does the sports editor and the courts editor and the education editor.

It's very common.

Not that I agree with Milbank. I'm just pointing out that doing double duty like this isn't rare.

[noamnety]

32. The reporter/columnist distinction is pretty straight forward

If he tells the truth, he's a reporter.

When he's misrepresenting facts or outright lying, he's a columnist.

I think I can keep that straight.

[high density]

42. I didn't know that either

This sort of thing happens often in my small local newspaper, but it's always very clear when the writer is in "columnist" or "reporter" mode. I thought this dual role practice only went on rarely at big newspapers and I did not know that Dana Milbank was also writing regular "columns." The subtlety of some of the Washington Post's website design makes it difficult to differentiate between opinion and reports if you don't know where to focus your attention.

[stellanoir]

5. Link to

Conyers' letter to the WP. . .

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0618-23.htm

He really nails Millbanks inaccuracies.

[Applan]

6. "Fixed" means "Fixed"

"Maybe there's a different interpretation, or maybe "fixed" means something different in British-speak."

The above is a quote from the linked article. I have heard this used as an excuse by many including MSNBC's Chris Matthews during a recent interview with Condosleeeza Rice.
Let's get one thing straight. "Fixed" in this context means exactly the same in British as in American. It means that the intelligence information was being manipulated, exaggerated, even fabricated to provide justification for beginning an illegal war. Plain and simple.
As a Brit, I know.

[Imagevision]

20. Let's get on with it! Articles of impeachment should begin

[Bob3]

7. Snippy little swine isn't he.

listen you self important bloward when I want colorful and provocative writing I'll read Joyce thank you very much. And one more thing - if you must as you feel you must write provocative writing why get in such a snit when it provokes a reaction? Isn't that the idea?

Jesus what a hack - go get a lunch in a nice restaurant somewhere and just stay out of the news business. You're too delicate.

[kodi]

8. someone called Milbank a "dirty Jew?"

Actually his reference to anti-semitism was in conjunction with the single man who spouted nonsense at the Conyers DSM forum.

So, Milbank distorted the context of the ethnic slur and made it appear as if the slur was aimed at him.

They call that "journalism."

If Milbank does not want to be "harassed," all he has to do is write objective news reports instead of snarky little articles where he takes factoids and weaves a cloth of distortion.

[kentuck]

13. Yes, the "I" in O-I-L stands for Israel....

I cannot prove it, just as I could not prove Bush's lies, but I think it is true that Israel was involved behind the scenes in the invasion of Iraq. Just my opinion.

[DoYouEverWonder]

49. I can prove it

Read this for all the proof you need:

A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

Following is a report prepared by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated. The report, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on strategy.

Israel has a large problem. Labor Zionism, which for 70 years has dominated the Zionist movement, has generated a stalled and shackled economy. Efforts to salvage Israel’s socialist institutions—which include pursuing supranational over national sovereignty and pursuing a peace process that embraces the slogan, "New Middle East"—undermine the legitimacy of the nation and lead Israel into strategic paralysis and the previous government’s "peace process." That peace process obscured the evidence of eroding national critical mass— including a palpable sense of national exhaustion—and forfeited strategic initiative. The loss of national critical mass was illustrated best by Israel’s efforts to draw in the United States to sell unpopular policies domestically, to agree to negotiate sovereignty over its capital, and to respond with resignation to a spate of terror so intense and tragic that it deterred Israelis from engaging in normal daily functions, such as commuting to work in buses.

http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm

[Jacobin]

10. Shouldn't he be joining the military?

He loves the war. He takes off after anyone who questions the rationale for invading Iraq.

He doesn't like being accused of supporting the war because he is jewish.

If he wants to fight for his homeland, wouldn't it be more appropriate for him to join to fight 'insurgents' than sending poor kids who thought they were earning college tuition to get killed for his ideology?

I'm just sayin'

[Eric J in MN]

11. In his column, he doesn't specify he's talking about

people who harassed him.

A plain reading is that he's referring to everyone call for more public discussion of the Downing St. Memo.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060701935.html

Yesterday's East Room meeting of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair was worth a cool $1,000 to Steve Holland, Reuters' chief White House correspondent, if he cares to collect it.

Earlier in the day, Democrats.com, a group of left-wing activists, sent out an e-mail offering a "reward" to anyone who could get an answer from Bush about whether a recently leaked British government memo from 2002 was correct in saying the Bush administration had "fixed" the intelligence about Iraq's weapons to justify war.


...Bush started out by suggesting that the memo wasn't credible because British media had "dropped it out in the middle of his race." Skipping any discussion of the intelligence, Bush said he had not settled on war from the start. "There's nothing farther from the truth," he asserted. "My conversations with the prime minister was, how can we do this peacefully?"

Holland, a consummate professional, wasn't trying to satisfy the wing nuts.

[flpoljunkie]

36. The craven Milbank, rather than addressing his snarky put down of Conyers,

whines about all the heat is is receiving for this incredibly juvenile piece of writing.

Shame on him. He deserves every bit of scorn heaped on his sorry behind. Perhaps he envisioned himself appearing on Tweety or Olbermann's show to talk about his "cool" put down of the heroic Congressman John Conyers, who had the courage to try and confront this administration and ask for answers regarding the contents of the explosive Downing Street Memo. These minutes make plain that war was not only not Bush's last resort"--it was his first and only option. To say that he was hell bent on war with Iraq is an understatement.

Goodness knows, the "poodle" Republicans have completely given up on any oversight of the Bush administration, arguably the most corrupt in our lifetimes--and that includes "Tricky Dick."

Let Milbank whine and continue preening for approal from his corporate paymasters and the conservative editorial board of the Washington Post. We've got his number.

[KoKo]

12. This is dreadful.... I was shocked to see Getler write something like this

and even more shocked at the paranoid statement by Dana Milbank. He sounded like he was parroting "Jimmy/Jeff" who claimed his family and he were overwhelmed with hate mail.

I had no idea Milbank was OTT like this.

[gratuitous]

14. Part and parcel with the report Milbanks filed from the Conyers forum

That report focused on minutiae, made condescending references to where the hearing was being held and the quick drop-ins by other Democrats to make it sound like a real circus.

Missing, naturally, was any context: The forum had to be conducted in a basement room because the Republican leadership had denied Conyers the use of any hearing rooms, though several were empty and available that day. In addition, the House leaders suddenly scheduled a number of important recorded votes that morning, to keep the Democrats away from the room where Conyers had to set up shop. Several of them, however, still made their way to the forum as a show of support for Conyers and what he was doing.

None of this quite made it into Milbanks' inadequate report on the forum (can't call it a hearing because it wasn't convened by a member of the majority party), due to space considerations, I'm sure. :eyes:

So now Milbanks gets a raft of well-deserved criticism for his sloppy, snippy coverage, but rather than answer the substantive criticisms, he chooses to focus on the "hateful, obscene and sometimes anti-Semitic speech." The poor baby! All those mean things folks said probably made him cry so hard he'll have trouble picking up his six-figure paycheck! The rest of us great unwashed can just go back to fighting and dying in this illegal war. What do we have to complain about?

[Kagemusha]

16. The point is he wasn't 'covering' it.

He was mocking it for a column. He just didn't tell anyone in the public that's what he was doing.

Sketching is also a term used in Britain. Seems rather obvious Milbank knows Brit-speak quite well.

[Eric J in MN]

48. What does "sketching" mean in Britain? nt

nt

[Imagevision]

15. Milbank falls in the catogory of The Jeff Gannon/Guckhert types!

Words and phrasing with no content!

[pat_k]

18. Didn't realize he was a multiple offender

I didn't realize that Millbank was a multiple offender -- Snarky piece on Conyers forum, calling Democrats.com "wing-nuts" . . .

And this is the defensive? Aarrggh!

Post Assistant Managing Editor Liz Spayd said "the term referred to one specific group" and not everyone who was questioning coverage of the memo. ... It was a needless red flag that undoubtedly would be read as disparaging beyond the group that Milbank was referring to...

Oh, they have not problem with disparaging "Democrats.com, the largest independent community of Democratic voters and activists" (as described in this article).

[Jade Fox]

19. "colorful, provocative writing".... So, you provoked us. Quit whining!

This is so self-flattering on Millbank's part: we're mad cause he's so good,
and we want to censor his awesome talent.

The good news is: our emails clearly got to him!

[Eric J in MN]

21. Good point.

He prides himself on being so "provacative" while claiming that people who criticize him are harrassing him.

[quaoar]

25. Indeed

If you write "provocative" articles you should not be stunned when people are provoked.

[Logansquare]

27. Yeah, like "Ow, don't hit me back!" freekin thin-skinned baby. n/t

[Sparkly]

22. Why didn't this deal more with his phraseology about Conyers?

Beyond calling us "wing nuts," I wanted to see a response to readers' criticisms of the condescending column about Conyers "playing dress-up with his little playmates" or whatever.

[Eric J in MN]

26. Probably next week. Getler may have written this on Friday,

the same day Milbank's column ran.

[Eric J in MN]

23. Even if those articles were on the op-ed page,

I still wouldn't appreciate people who care about the Downing St. Memo being called "wing nuts" by Dana Milbank, or people who testified at Conyers unofficial hearing being called his "playmates" by Dana Milbank.

[Doctor_J]

28. So he can call a group "wingnuts", but we can't call

him a liar and a propagandist, even though he regularly writes lies and proaganda?

Smirk and his entire cabal are so used to going unchallenged that their skin has gotten thin.

[libertypirate]

29. When they have to defend themselves they can't fuck the truth.

Ha!

[shance]

30. Dana "condemnation for others, mercy and compassion for me" Milbank?

Is this who we are talking about?

[liam97]

33. Dear Mr.Getler

Your column raises more questions than it answers.

"Milbank is one of the paper's most talented and observant reporters" - is it a fact or an opinion?

"On Friday, for example, The Post covered an unofficial antiwar hearing on Capitol Hill only in a Milbank column. Several readers found this inappropriate". Rightfully so, as this was not an anti-war hearing, this was a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes. Also, how can "several" be defined? Is it a number? Do you have a record of how many? Or is this your opinion?

"Unfortunately, it has never been announced or explained to Post readers that reporter Milbank is also now columnist Milbank" - are you suggesting columnists at the Post are allowed to distort facts? The distortions are outlined in John Conyers' letter.


"The Post's editorial page also weighed in on the Downing Street memos (another has been leaked), saying: "They add nothing to what was publicly known in July 2002." That also brought mail". Any idea why?

Sincerely,

[shance]

35. "How can several be defined? Do you have a record of how many?"

Sterling*

[Up2Late]

34. What an Idiot! He should have just claimed he was Drunk when...

...he wrote it, that's an excuse that almost every Politician and Journalist must for give him for, or he could claim "Youthful Indiscretion" as the "never my fault" ReThugs like to say.

[Rainscents]

37. What a cry baby... He can dish it out, but can't take it.

This is typical Neo-Cons!

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: You fuckin cry baby!

[CAG]

38. RW political correctness

has run amuck. Their just so touchy these days....

[Nancy Waterman]

39. Maybe Milbank needs a long sabbatical to cool his heels

He is clearly pretty agitated and irrational at the moment. Maybe some nice meds would clear his head. And six months off.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Catrina]

43. Excellent letter

And I think this is a point that ought to be stressed. Milbank insulted the families of those who died in this war. Cindy Sheehan was not the only parent of a dead soldier who was at the hearing.

I think he owes those people an apology. As you say, parents of dead soldiers who were there were hardly playing dress-up. If only that were true.

And he's whining about being called names, not that I approve of that, but what does he call 'wing nuts'?

So typical of of his kind, they got away for so long, without being challenged that they are totally thin-skinned now and whine like babies when someone calls them a name.

Maybe he should go enlist, and find out what it's like to be shot at, like the dead soldiers, whose families he insulted with his childish diatribe. I hope Cindy Sheehan writes him a letter.

I've been threatened with death by those he represents, simply for disagreeing with them. He should quit this job, he doesn't have the stomach to deal with the results of his own nasty and inaccurate insults.

I learned something new today ~ a columnist can lie, distort the facts and insult US Congressmen and then cry like a baby when they call him on his behavior.

They were too cowardly to publish Conyers' excellent letter. I think we should ask other newspapers to publish that letter. Since the Post has yet to correct the distortions, maybe someone else will.

One thing though, I guess we were pretty provocative! :-)

[noamnety]

44. oops, reposting my letter

I asked a mod to delete it because I accidentally left my full name on, and it was too late to edit, but here it is again, for continuity's sake.

Subject: Can you clarify the distinction between reporter and columnist?

Does reporter mean factually accurate and fair, while columnist gives the author free reign to omit and misrepresent facts, and flat out lie?

I'm still struggling to figure out how the Post allowed a "columnist" to refer to a grieving mother who lost her son in Iraq as "playing dressup," and why an apology hasn't been issued. As a veteran, I can assure you, the people involved in the war aren't "playing dressup". The people who have had family members killed aren't "playing dressup". Likewise, neither are the elected officials who are investigating the reasons we went to war.

[Eric J in MN]

47. very good (nt)

nt

[darkism]

41. We've gotta stop this "anti-Semitic" meme n/t

[mandomom]

46. Milbank is obviously personally involved

in his stories. For that reason alone, he is disqualified to be presented as a "reporter" with objectivity and an absence of bias. Perhaps he could write an editorial now and then, with full disclosure of the "hateful" stuff that "wingnuts" throw at him. Go ahead, Milbank. This would be a good time to avoid anonymous sourcing. Either spit it out or stop using it to manipulate the readers and to stroke your own sense of omniscience. I used to fully respect your reportage. Now, as a result of what seems like transparent ax grinding, not so much.