Last week, things went from bad to worse for the Washington Post's new
ombudsman Deborah Howell.
The problems began when Ms. Howell attempted to defend a Post story
which said that Democrats and Republicans were equally implicated in
the Jack Abramoff scandal.
Howell wrote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011400859.html
Schmidt quickly found that Abramoff was getting 10 to 20 times as much
from Indian tribes as they had paid other lobbyists.
And he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major
parties.
Unfortunately, that's just plain false.
Abramoff made substantial campaign contributions to members of just
one party - the Republican party.
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=DC&last=ABRAMOFF&first=JACK
He never made a single campaign contribution to any Democrat.
But rather than acknowledging and retracting the error (and hey, an
apology would have been nice), Howell tried to cover her *****.
Four days later she wrote this on the Post's blog:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/archive/2006/wapo/
I've heard from lots of angry readers about the remark in my column
Sunday that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties.
A better way to have said it would be that Abramoff "directed"
contributions to both parties.
I'm sorry, that's not a "better way to have said it."
That's saying something completely different.
Not only that, but there isn't even any evidence that Abramoff
"directed" money to Democrats - if anything, the opposite happened.
For example, Indian tribes who traditionally donated to Democrats
dramatically reduced their donations after getting involved with
Abramoff, and instead donated more to the Republican party.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=arVHles5cKJc&refer=us#
Can Ms. Howell explain exactly how Democrats are tainted by tribes
which gave them less money after getting involved with Abramoff?
But that's not the end of the story.
Post readers, incensed at the alleged ombudsman's utter disregard for
the facts, posted hundreds of angry comments in response to Howell's
"clarification."
The Post subsequently deleted the comments from the blog after
claiming that too many of them contained "hate speech."
Certainly the Post was doing nothing wrong by deleting rude or
offensive messages, but was it necessary to also delete the
inoffensive comments?
Judge for yourselves - we were able to save the comments for your
viewing pleasure.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/archive/2006/wapo/
The next day, Post reporter Jim Vandehei jumped on the bandwagon,
writing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/01/13/DI2006011301043.html
Deborah Howell, our ombudsman, wrote that Democrats got Abramoff
money, too.
It was a somewhat inartful way of making the point that Abramoff's
clients, at his direction, gave money to members of both parties, but
more to Republicans than Democrats.
Let's review Howell's comments one more time:
....he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major
parties.
That's not "somewhat inartful" - it's flat out wrong.
But I guess now it's the job of Post reporters to put words in their
ombudsman's mouth.
Next, the executive editor of washingtonpost.com, Jim Brady, addressed
further complaints about the comments being deleted.
Well, actually he repeated the excuse that too many posts were
offensive - but he still didn't explain why hundreds of legitimate
comments were deleted as well.
Clearly realizing that they'd been caught with their pants down, the
Post subsequently reposted many of the comments which had been deleted
from the blog.
And Deborah Howell acknowledged her error in Sunday's column, writing,
"I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members
of Congress. He didn't. ... It's not a bipartisan scandal; it's a
Republican scandal, and that's why the Republicans are scurrying
around trying to enact lobbying reforms."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012100907_pf.html
She also noted that "it is profoundly distressing if political
discourse has sunk to a level where abusive name-calling and the
crudest of sexual language are the norm, where facts have no place in
an argument."
Gee, you only just noticed?
You didn't get a clue when Bush surrogates suggested that John McCain
had an illegitimate black baby, or that Max Cleland, John Kerry and
John Murtha are anti-American cowards?
And if the vice president of the United States can tell a senator to
"go ***** yourself" on the Senate floor, perhaps you shouldn't expect
higher standards from the American people.
When it takes this much effort to get the Washington Post's ombudsman
to even acknowledge an obvious error, let alone correct it, one has to
wonder how conservatives are still getting away with this "liberal
media" rubbish.
From The Democratic Underground
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
Harry
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