Surprise surprise. Dana Milbank, an op-ed writer at The Washington Post, doesn’t think Operation Fast & Furious is a scandal. Of course I sent him an email because I want to know why he doesn’t think this is a scandal.

Dear Dana:

I am a writer for Big Journalism and I’ve been keeping on eye on the media’s coverage of Operation Fast and Furious. My main question for you is what qualifies for a scandal? Please explain to my readers, editor, and me why this isn’t a scandal. Would you care to explain to Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s family why this isn’t a scandal?

You admit the operation was a debacle and acknowledge the bloodshed caused by this operation. Yet you claim it hasn’t reached the level of a political scandal? Sir, what would you call this? Guns have been found at hundreds of crime scenes in America. AMERICA. These guns have caused 200+ deaths in Mexico. Our federal government allowed guns to get into the hands of dangerous drug cartels. OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. How is that not a political scandal? People have died. People like Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

There’s no smoking gun? How about the numerous memos from July 2010 proving Eric Holder was briefed on this operation? That’s not a smoking gun? Actually there have been smoking guns. about 1400+ smoking guns! I know The Washington Post isn’t covering the story that well, but you should look at CBS and Sharyl Atkisson. She has interviews of ATF agents detailing the operation. Her coverage proves this is scandal going somewhere fast.

So would you like it if they just agreed to never do this again? You don’t want them to get to the bottom of this? You don’t want to find justice for Brian Terry and his family?

I’ve attached a picture of Brian Terry. Please respond ASAP. I will be emailing until I receive a response.

Thank you,
Mary Chastain

Mr. Milbank actually wrote about the operation being a debacle and the bloodshed, but somehow that still isn’t enough to be called a scandal? I am dying to know what qualifies as a political scandal. I also love how he doesn’t think there hasn’t been a smoking gun. Yes Mr. Milbank. At least 1,400+ smoking guns! (I must credit my wonderful husband with that one) He appears to not care that one of those smoking guns appeared at Brian Terry’s murder scene. Who cares that Brian Terry died, who cares that 200+ Mexican civilians have died because of these guns, is that what we’re saying? Who cares these guns have shown up at hundreds of crime scenes in America!

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Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank tends to use an unusual barometer to select his topics.  He likes to write about subjects for which he has a very strong opinion, but very little knowledge. His latest column, “Joe Lieberman joining Glenn Beck: a shanda” proves my point.  Unfortunately Milbank would not know a shanda (Yiddish for embarrassment), if one jumped up kissed him on the lips and wished him a gut morgan (good morning).

The purpose of this column was to criticize Senator Joe Lieberman for joining Glenn Beck for his August rally in Jerusalem called “Restoring Courage.”

“I’d love to participate,” Lieberman confirmed when The Post’s Felicia Sonmez found him in a Capitol hallway. “It’s just going to be a rally to support Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

This nearly caused me to plotz [faint].

Notice how cleverly Milbank stuck a Yiddish word into his column to prove his Jewish “street cred?”

Joe Lieberman, first Jew on a presidential ticket, was embracing Beck, the leading purveyor of anti-Semitic memes in the mass media. One of the most visible Jews in America was making common cause with a man who invoked apocalyptic Christian theology in promoting his rally in Israel.

I admire Lieberman, and I’ve defended him over the years when he defied party and faction. But if he shares a stage with this creature, he will surrender the decency that has defined his public life. [my emphasis]

Its interesting that Milbank uses Yiddish to establish his Jewish “street cred”, but calls him the leading purveyor of anti-Semitic memes” If Milbank truly wants to prove his Jewishness, perhaps he should learn the concept of, “motzi shem ra“is the spreading of malicious lies,” which according to the Rabbis is a severe sin. With this comment, Milbank is showing he buys into the George Soros/ Media Matters strategy of trying to destroy Glenn Beck by branding him as an anti-Semite (the history of this strategy is outlined here).

For those of you who are not familiar with the Beck rally allow me to present this explanation.

Israel is in the most precarious position she has faced since the 1967 War. Palestinian terrorists are on three of its borders, Fatah in Judea and Samaria,  Hamas in Gaza,  Hezbollah in Lebanon. Adding to the threat is that the Syrian regime is  facing collapse, so it is tying to divert its people’s attention from hating it leaders to hating Israel, Egypt is becoming radicalized and most of the parties with potential to twin the next election and take over leadership of the country are promising to tear up the Camp David treaty. And Iran, close to developing the capability to send a nuclear warhead into Tel Aviv continues to threaten to wipe the Jewish State off the map.

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With circular and ultimately faulty logic, Dana Milbank appears to have decided to paint Andrew Breitbart as divisive on the Right, while pointing out what he calls a Right-side schism, long before he knew what he might eventually write. In fact, he reveals how little he actually knows, or understands, about the Right and any schism.

To test the newly fratricidal Breitbart, I went to his book talk at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday and invited him to dispense more friendly fire. He obliged, with complaints about Beck’s rally on the National Mall and the birther movement.

Breitbart’s criticism of fellow conservatives is part of a new wave of infighting on the right. Three months after gaining control of the House, cracks have begun to appear in the conservative coalition. [my emphasis]

Said cracks appeared as far back as 2008, before any GOP majority was seated. Beck had conservative critics as far back as October of  08 when he joined Fox. The birther movement began during the Democrat primary thanks to Democrats aligned with Hillary Clinton, some Right-siders picking up on it only after she lost the primary. It’s always had a controversial home on the Right, leading to critics. Consequently, what Milbank attempts to hang on Andrew Breitbart as new, or different and divisive, is nothing more than what we’ve known for three years, or more, having nothing at all to do with Andrew Breitbart, except that he gave voice to things that have existed for some time in one speech.

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Democratic party front group Media Matters for America responded with typical vomit-slurping gusto in its response Sunday to Big Journalism’s report on the Washington Post crossing the line from journalism to partisan political action by orchestrating a viral Twitter campaign against Sarah Palin.

Writing at the County Fair blog section of Media Matters, blogger Eric Boehlert ignored the subject of the article as spelled out in the lede, “The Washington Post is engaging in online political activism by encouraging its readers to boycott news coverage of Sarah Palin.”

Anti-Palin logo by The Washington Post

Instead, he typed a fallacious article that claimed the subject was a complaint that Palin would not be covered by the Post: “Palin Bloggers Now Complaining She’s Not Getting Enough Coverage.”

Boehlert failed to inform his readers that the Post had made a radical correction to the wording of its anti-Palin Twitter campaign.

The Post made the changes after being contacted last Friday by Big Journalism.

As was reported previously, the Post launched a viral Twitter campaign to accompany columnist Dana Milbank’s Outlook section piece titled, “I’m Declaring February a Palin-Free Month. Join Me!” (more…)

Pastry shops aren’t this delicious.

As the first of the “Tea Party” candidates to rock the boat and triumph over a moderate Republican, Marco Rubio became the MSM poster boy for the extremism that was purportedly going to KO any chance of the GOP doing well in November. According to those oh-so-concerned-for-Republicans voices in the media, the ideological purging on the Right would split votes and allow Democrats to emerge victorious.

The Republican infighting over Florida’s Senate seat that drove Gov. Charlie Crist to ditch the GOP is giving an underdog Democrat a realistic shot at pulling off an upset in the fall,” AP writes. “Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek, who appeared headed to a lopsided loss in November, suddenly looks like a plausible contender to snatch away victory as Crist’s decision to run as an independent sets up a three-way race that could split Republicans between the governor and Republican favorite Marco Rubio.

Poor Dana Milbank was in such a state at the Washington Post that he did everything but beg for a hanky and a fan to help him through a case of the vapors.

But the Crist crisis is a whole new level of Jacobin excess; in the case of Lieberman, Democrats at least waited until he lost the primary to purge him.

Not so the Republicans, who are in a dogmatic race to the bottom as they drop Crist for his far-right challenger, Marco Rubio.

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It almost sounds like the set up to a “guy walks into a bar” joke — or maybe a knock-knock joke — but the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank made an assessment of his own political ideology that can’t help but draw a laugh.

As WaPo columnist Howard Kurtz reports, Milbank is being moved to the Post’s editorial pages. But it is what Milbank said of himself that amuses.

“Anybody reading my column would make an informed judgment that I’m left-of-center, and I wouldn’t quarrel with that,” he says. “But strongly ideological people on the left do not recognize me as one of their own.”

I see. So because the wholly whacked-out fringe of the far, far left (see the Communist Party USA, George Soros, or MoveOn.orgers) don’t consider him a sufficiently whacked out, moonbat to suit them… then what, Dana?

Is that supposed to be some sort of mitigating factor for Milbank? He admits to being a leftist, but because the most fringeworthy left doesn’t accept him are we supposed to slap him on the back and welcome him to the right side of the aisle?

The fact is he’s still a leftist ideologue and his work should be taken as that of a leftist ideologue, no matter whether he isn’t left enough for the left-wing fringe.

But let’s have some fun with Milbank’s distinction-without-a-difference style of reasoning. Let’s take his logic and see what other situations we can excuse using it… (more…)

Everyone knows that Dana Milbank of the Washington Post is a colossally unserious buffoon, a walking, talking, Walter Duranty-like jackass of legendary proportions.

After then-Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally grazed a friend in a very minor hunting accident, Milbank dressed up on MSNBC as a real-life Elmer Fudd, brandishing a dayglo orange hunting cap and vest. He might as well have pulled down his pants and mooned the TV audience.

In a move that no doubt earned him an eternal place in any frozen hell administered in the afterlife by feminazi Gloria Steinem, Milbank also called Hillary Clinton a bitch in a YouTube video.

Now he’s written a piece in which he subtextually insinuates that Glenn Beck is a would-be cop killer. (more…)

It’s not fair to blame Beck for violence committed by people who watch his show.

This tiny journalistic fig leaf appears midway through Dana Milbank’s latest article for the Washington Post. The remainder of Milbank’s 750-word piece is devoted to blaming Glenn Beck for violence committed by those who watch his show. Or, more specifically, the violence of two specific men who had watched Beck’s show.

The first is Byron Williams, a two-time felon who was on parole, out of work, and living with his mother. Two weeks ago, Williams was stopped by police en route to “start a revolution” by killing members of the ACLU and the Tides Foundation in San Francisco. We don’t know where Williams heard about the Tides foundation, but based on an interview with William’s mother, Milbank implicates Beck. Of course this is, at best, guilt by televised association. Glenn Beck has never met Williams or encouraged him or anyone else to take up arms against the Tides Foundation (or anyone else).

And this turns out to be Milbank’s best argument. When he tries to offer the proverbial 2nd point required to draw a line, he blows it completely: (more…)

The Obama administration’s now-habitual restrictions on the media and press freedom on vital but politically touchy issues are the most severe, extreme and orchestrated ever witnessed in this nation.

Reporters were shut out, for example, during Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent parley in the White House and again when when Obama signed an executive order on abortion. Those who should have been protesting the loudest, the mainstream media, typically and meekly acquiesced in these restraints on freedom.

But, after journalists’ near airtight exclusion from the president’s recent Nuclear Security Summit, at least some of them have been showing signs of having finally had enough.

Seasoned White House reporters complained to both the president and White House Correspondents’ Association. More strikingly, the Washington Post, not known for holding Obama rigorously to account, also published Dana Milbank’s hard-hitting expose of this shameful and embarrassing episode in presidential and media annals.

Milbank went so far as to opine that, in face of the repressive and militaristic environment in the Capitol at the time of the summit, world leaders could well have thought themselves “transported to Soviet-era Moscow.” The oft-invoked “this session is closed press” mantra, he said, “would have pleased China’s Central Committee.” In addition, he had the temerity to remark, here was the “’leader of the free world – putting on a clinic for some of the world’s greatest dictators in how to circumvent a free press.” (more…)

Are you a progressive network or newspaper that has sought to portray the Tea Party Movement as racist with selective video editing, and now you have those same Tea Party Members pointing out the lack of diversity at your network or paper?

Well fear not. Progressives Hosts and Writers, the same people who brought you the slogan, “some of my best friends are Black,” are pleased to announce our latest business venture named “Members of our News Contributors Team are Black.”

Yes that right if you are your network’s or newspaper’s Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Dana Milbank or Frank Rich,, you no longer secretly have to feel like a hypocrite when leveling charges of racism against conservatives while hiding the lack of diversity at your employer’s when you shop at “Members of our News Contributors Team are Black.”

Just in time for 2010 and the mid-term elections, we have stocked the best quality Black Progressive Shills to be on your personal news contributor team. Just think of your comfort level during your media parties with Progressive politicians as you rattle off the list of Black Contributors that we have provided for you as you rip into Rush, Hannity, Beck and others with pride.

We have stocked a whole range of quality Blacks of various stereotypes: (more…)

David Broder is known as the “Dean of the Washington press corps,” but it can more accurately be said that he’s the “David Gergen of the Washington press corps:” the apostle of conventional wisdom/custodian of institutional memory/protector of Democrat Party interests/and non-rocker of the boat.

Broder is the kind of journalist who facilitates the smooth operation of the rackets, the scribe who keeps the rubes out there in Flyoverland thinking that the game isn’t rigged, that somebody inside the Beltway takes those noble words inscribed on the D.C. buildings and monuments at face value, and that here in America the people — not the powerful — rule.

Which is why he could hardly let slide his Post colleague Dana Milbank’s astonishing act of lèse majesté against the Emperor Hussein in the form of this extraordinary paean to the genius of Obama hatchet man Rahm Emanuel, which included these gems:

Obama’s first year fell apart in large part because he didn’t follow his chief of staff’s advice on crucial matters. Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter. (more…)