Dana Milbank Gets Froomkined by Lil' Debbie
Just when you thought Lil' Debbie had reached her nadir, the crusty old bird who raised her fist to the sky and shrieked "I'll never be hungry again!" finds new professional substratum to probe.
She has now turned the ombudsman's column of the Washington Post into Lucky Magazine. She says of Dana Milbank, "I think his appearance on MSNBC last week was a mistake in judgment," and assures everyone that he has been "taken to the woodshed" for what she perceives as a wardrobe malfunction on a television show.
First of all -- Jesus tapdancing Christ, does Deborah Howell even know she is supposed to be the "reader's representative," and that she's not writing a fucking opinion column? Well I think the reporters of the WaPo need fashion tips from Deborah Howell like I need lectures on bad language from that foul-mouthed old Lone Star battleaxe.
Secondly -- is she even on the ball enough to know that Jeb Bush and Scott McClellan did virtually the same thing? Where is all the tut-tutting about the President's brother's orange badge or Scott McClellan's orange tie and their lame jokes? Why do those not draw down her dithering opprobrium as well? Shouldn't she just, you know, stick to what is actually printed in the pages of the Post and not worry about some off-duty fashion gaff? Is that really what she thinks her role is?
Debbie acknowledges that this came because right-wing blogs (specifically Malkin and the Power Tools) directed their readers to her. Earlier in the week Rocket Boy gave off licking his privates for a moment to express his outrage at Milbank's attire and said that Lil' Debbie would be addressing it in this week's column. Snap his fingers, Lil' Debbie hops to like a Texas toad.
(So much for the claim of the Power Tools that they aspire to be "commenters" and don't encourage their readers to action like bloggers on the left. We would employ the word "hypocrite" but it has far too many syllables and would likely just confuse the them further. Suffice to say had their precious Bush junta not been downplaying Whittington's injuries from the get with words like "peppered" none of this probably would've happened.)
On the other hand, it has now been five, count 'em five weeks to the day since Lil' Debbie first printed her column saying that Abramoff gave money to both Democrats and Republicans. Although she herself finally (grudgingly) acknowledged that this was wrong, no correction has been appended to her original column; this despite the fact that such "deranged leftists" as Bradford J. DeLong, economics professor at UC Berkeley and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, as well as many others have asked her on the newly reopened post.blog to do so.
Does someone actually need to tell her that making such a correction is standard operating procedure for any news organization that actually holds itself to some sort of standard with regard to factual reporting? One might think an ombudsman of all people would be aware of this obscure technicality.
Debbie now thinks that Milbank, like Froomkin before him, should be punished for showing bias against the GOP (as if) and thus be permanently banished to the opinion page. (Because Steno Sue, you know, never does anything like that. The Jessica Lynch story, her anonymous source "coverage" of Monicagate and the faceloads she regularly delivers to the Democrats are just good, solid reporting.)
Is there really any doubt that this clueless crone is completely out of touch, has no idea what her job is and remains firmly in the tank for the GOP?
I should also mention that we have now learned what words are so obscene, so vile, so foul that they cannot be tolerated by the language filter at the post.blog -- Steno Sue. So if you decide to stop by and make any commentary, here's a word to the wise -- don't use the words "Steno Sue" to refer to the woman who stole the work of a dead man she refuses to acknowledge and whose fact-free reporting was the source of Howell's egregious error to begin with. The comments -- like several from last night (which I took care to preserve in our comments, knowing they would soon be gone) -- will be deleted (more here.) I'm partial to the term "Tachyographer Schmidt" which some have been using in its stead.
Update: Paul Lukasiak has more on what the Post finds offensive.
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 2/19/2006 01:04:00 PM
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