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Washington Post "White House" reporters get their panties in a bunch about a blog-style column by Post guy  Dan Froomkin.   The fogeys are concerned, allegedly, that readers will be confused by the title of Froomkin's column "White House Briefing."   Oooh baby.  STFU.  The Post fogeys should be hanging their heads over the Woodward issue.   Bloggers helped keep the real story alive.

Meanwhile, http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/13/froomkin-flap/

In an interview today, Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. made clear that the top concern of the paper�s editorial team wasn�t regular readers after all � it was the Bush administration:

We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin�s column because it contains opinion. And that readers of the Web site understand that, too.

The White House knows exactly who is doing political reporting for the Washington Post. The real message Post editors are sending here is that they don�t approve of Froomkin�s content, and that�s a different story altogether.

Well, you combine WaPo (Woodward), NYT (JMiller) and now add TimeMag (Viveca Novak) and you've got something resembling the 'Three Weird Sisters' from MacBeth. All you gotta do is drop in some eye of newt.

"I love the smell of burning paper in the morning. It smells like...'intelligence failure'."

or leaks, or grand jury testimony, or conflicts of interest, or...

the First Amendment.

::jaw drops::

huh? This is the vaunted WaPo?

Reads like a grand jury invocation of Fifth Amendment rights.

OTOH, it decidedly does NOT read like any kind of 'transparent media' (except as implied above, ironically; transparent obfuscating.)

MysticCow wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

MysticCow wrote:

And here comes Schnick.  All we need is bedstuy now and we can re-create the "more or less" debacle!

Ah, an automated response. Nice.

O how I wish we could get a better class of debaters in here ...

O how I wish we didn't have to engage in personal attacks in here...

uh... yeah -- BUT YOU JUST DID A MINUTE AGO

HypocriteCow

Tetrachloride wrote:

Conservative "blogger" who criticizes the Washington post blogger Dan Froomkin is revealed to be former director of the Republican eCampaign.  http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/12/a … vs_gr.html

Moreover, the national political editor of the Washington Post, John Harris tries to cover up.  At one point, they go "off-the-record".   On the record,

Q: Can you give any examples--other than Republican National Committee eCampaign Director Patrick Ruffini http://www.patrickruffini.com/archives/ … ht.php--of people who are seriously confused about Dan Froomkin's role at WPNI?

A: I cannot comment for the record because I've promised I won't comment on this.

Q: Did you, when you sent your answers to Jay Rosen yesterday, know that your "grassroots conservative weblogger" Patrickk Ruffini had been a Republican campaign operative in 2004?

A: I cannot comment for the record because I've promised that I won't comment on this.

Q: Did you, when you sent your answers to Jay Rosen yesterday, know that your "grassroots conservative weblogger" Patrick Ruffini was now eCampaign Director for the Republican National Committee?

A: I cannot comment for the record because I've promised that I won't comment on this.

Talk about your transparent media. 

John Harris needs to be fired, now. And flogged on the mall.

Good god, I used to really respect the Post.

FireDogLake catches the Washington Post in either incompetence or corrupt biased reporting :  link

"George W. Bush has picked new nominees for the FEC. -Bush is also appointing a Democrat, Robert D. Lenhard, who was quite helpful to the 1600 Crew as part of the legal team that challenged the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.  But there is perhaps another reason why Mr. Lenhard is being rewarded by BushCo. at just this moment. He's the husband of Viveca Novak, whose testimony now provides the foundation for Karl Rove's defense in the CIA leak case...."

They don't even try to hide it anymore. Why doesn't the Washington Post report this little tidbit? Let's ask John Harris shall we?

Washington Post ombudswoman: talk to people except the ones who don't like her

The Washington Post's ombudsman has announced she's no longer going to reply to critics. So what exactly is the Washington Post paying this woman for?



The Washington Post's new ombudsman has come under some criticism of late for writing a series of rather poor columns. Her first claim to fame was commenting on Bob Woodward's ethical lapse of failing to tell his editor, or the public, for two years that he was intimately involved in the Valerie Plame affair, while he went on TV and criticized the special prosecutor. The ombudsman's recommendation for fixing the problem of Woodward refusing to come clean to his editor? Bob needs an editor.

Then, just last week, the ombudsman wrote last week that Jack Abramoff gave lots of money to Democrats. In fact, Jack Abramoff never gave a dime to Democrats, his personal donations were only to Republicans. The ombudsman went on to suggest that conservative critics were correct in being angry at the Post for not mentioning all the Democrats who Jack Abramoff personally gave money to (again, there were none).

And the latest controversy is over another Post reporter writing that Bush "repeatedly consulted" with members of Congress about his illegal domestic spying program. In fact, the administration informed a few select members of Congress about parts of the program but gave them no option to agree or disagree with what was taking place, and in fact, several members of Congress expressed concern about what the administration was proposing to do. Therefore, to suggest that the administration repeatedly consulted with members of Congress - i.e., those members of Congress had input on the spy program and thus endorsed it - is not true.

Well, Media Matters, a lead media watchdog group, complained to the ombudsman about this last issue, the ombudsman responded, and when Media Matters responded to the ombudsman's response, the Washington Post ombudsman apparently told the Washington Post's staff internally that she was no longer going to reply to critics.

The lady needs a valium and a nursing home.

MysticCow wrote:

I love how bloggers scream about how Bush lied to us, even though every other person on the planet had the exact same intelligence about Iraq that Bush did and that Clinton had the same intelligence.  In other words, if Bush lied, why were several thousand soldiers sent out to find these WMD's and embarrass Bush by not finding anything?

Because they figured not enough people would actually care. Once the war started they can say they are fighting terrorism, promoting democracy and human rights and all that crap. They just needed some lies to get the war off the ground.

Great story on incompetence of the reporting of the Washington Post.  The topic was Congressman Murtha.

http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/200 … gives.html

The Post story, by reporters Howard Kurtz and Shallagh Murray, quotes extensively David Thibault, the editor in chief of the (who ever heard of them before the Washington Post decided to give them such prominence?) Cybercast News Service, as saying that Murtha's medals from 1967 are relevant now "because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement."

But the article tells us very little about Thibault himself. Had the reporters done a simple Internet search, they would have discovered this biography of Thibault posted online which describes him as a "senior producer for a televised news magazine" broadcast and sponsored by the Republican National Committee. I dunno, but I for one, would have wanted to know that.

Read the whole story for more  incompetence.

bratboy wrote:

[Tycho?] wrote:

MysticCow wrote:

I love how bloggers scream about how Bush lied to us, even though every other person on the planet had the exact same intelligence about Iraq that Bush did and that Clinton had the same intelligence.  In other words, if Bush lied, why were several thousand soldiers sent out to find these WMD's and embarrass Bush by not finding anything?

Because they figured not enough people would actually care. Once the war started they can say they are fighting terrorism, promoting democracy and human rights and all that crap. They just needed some lies to get the war off the ground.

Not to mention that one can completely over-exaggerate and distort the available intelligence and yet still hope that some justification for their actions can be dredged up later.

Also, Cow was being a bit dishonest in claiming everyone had "the exact same intelligence."  Lots of our more colorful claims came originated from prisoners or from Chalabi, and those were simply completely fabricated.

Exactly.  Just because the White House bought Chalabi's claims doesn't mean others did. In fact, it was German Intelligence that warned against the reliability of Chalabi's friend's in-law, this "Curveball" character.

The claim that everyone was operating with the same intelligence, let alone accepted the same intelligence, is utter rubbish.