WaPo Editor claims he was "mugged" by the "blogosphere"

[Roland99]

And he still got the FACTS wrong!! Fvcking liar!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001914_pf.html

My career as a nitwitted, emasculated fascist began the afternoon of Jan. 19 when, as executive editor of the Post's Web site, washingtonpost.com, I closed down the comments area of one of our many blogs, one called post.blog. Created primarily to announce new features on the Web site, the blog had become ground zero for angry readers complaining about a column by Post ombudsman Deborah Howell on the newspaper's coverage of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. If I had let them, they would have obliterated any semblance of civil, genuine discussion.

As it was, things got pretty ugly, and it's worth figuring out why. In her Jan. 15 column, Howell erred in saying that Abramoff gave campaign donations to Democrats as well as Republicans. In fact, Abramoff directed clients to give to members of both parties, but he had donated his own personal funds only to Republicans.

Howell's inadvertent error prompted a handful of bloggers to urge their readers to go to post.blog to vent their discontent, and in the subsequent four days we received more than a thousand comments in our public forum. Only, the word "comments" doesn't convey the obscene, vituperative tone of a lot of the postings, which were the sort of things you might find carved on the door of a public toilet stall. About a hundred of them had to be removed for violating the Post site's standards, which don't allow profanity or personal attacks.

To my dismay, matters only got worse on Jan. 19 after Howell posted a clarification on washingtonpost.com. Instead of mollifying angry readers, the clarification prompted more than 400 additional comments over the next five hours, many of them so crude as to be unprintable in a family newspaper. Soon the number of comments that violated our standards of Web civility overwhelmed our ability to get rid of them; only then did we decide to shut down comments on the blog.

I would like to see Brady's PROOF that Abramoff directed his clients to give money to Democrats as well as to Republicans.

Where's that proof, Jim?

[NanceGreggs]

1. Where's that proof, Jim?

The PROOF is in the same filing cabinet that holds the documents that PROVE Iraq had WMDs, that PROVE that Saddam was responsible for 9/11,
et cetera.

Oh, yeah, and they also just added the documents that PROVE Bush thwarted a shoe-bomber attack in L.A. ...

[dsc]

2. The opposite actually happened

as reported by none other than the Washington Post. The Indian tribes actually gave less money once Abramoff started directing their largess.

[glitch]

3. I doubt very much that's when his career as a nitwitted fascist began.

Simply when he was made aware of it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Well said.

Well said.

[Cocoa]

4. when the bloggers attack them from the right it's a different story

they say, the blogs are a good thing, they keep us honest.

But when the blogs catch them protecting the powerful, they get defensive.

[Roland99]

6. Gotta protect the hands that feed them.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. So I popped off a little email to Diamond Jim, as follows:

You're still getting it wrong.

You are of course correct that Jack Abramoff gave his own funds only to Republicans, but I don't believe you can provide any support whatsoever for your assertion that



"in fact, Abramoff directed clients to give to members of both parties...."



Some of Abramoff's clients did indeed give money to Democrats, but there is no particular reason to believe that they did so on Abramoff's instructions. Indeed, many of them had long histories of donating to Democrats, and the size of their Democratic donations was reduced after they engaged Abramoff as a political consultant.

/s/{Jackpine Radical}

[Roland99]

8. The truth means nothing to them. They're paid to create the truth.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. I know, I know...but at least the last deluge of emails forced them

to make some kind of response. I thought it was worth a couple minutes of my time to let them know they're still not off the hook.

[noamnety]

9. "Why are people so angry? It was a mistake, it was corrected."

Perhaps if the "mistake" was retracted rather than clarified people wouldn't have been so angry. Perhaps if instead of calling it a "mistake" they admitted it was shameless parroting of rightwing lies, people wouldn't have been so angry.

Perhaps if the post hadn't come off as apologists for unethical and unprofessional journalism, perhaps if there were actual consequences for such incompetent and irresponsible reporting, people wouldn't have been so angry.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Succinct, incisive. Why not email your comments to Brady?

[e-mail]

[noamnety]

16. Alright, I can take a hint

I emailed it. :)

[tsuki]

12. Waaaaa! Waaaa! Sniff. Sniff. Waaaaa! Here's a hanky. Now,

try doing some research. Or at least read Bloomberg.

[kentuck]

13. We should declare war on the MSM...

I mean, put heat on their asses. How? I have no idea. :shrug:

[gratuitous]

14. Climb down off the cross, Mr. Brady

The FACT is that you got the story wrong. You tried to say that black was white. And folks called you on it. Now you want to be nailed up right beside Jesus as if something unprecedented in the history of commentary happened. Well, it happens all the time that folks in cyberspace "vent their discontent." You might want to see what you can do about getting used to it.

As it is, nothing happened to you. Nothing at all. But you got the story and the facts wrong, and you're still getting the story wrong. Jack Abramoff is a purely Republican story.

[fujiyama]

15. He's still full of shit

I have not seen ONE iota of evidence showing that Abramoff directed his clients to give donations to both parties.

What a bunch of sanctimonious bullshit...Woe is me...Th online community used dirty words. Waaaaa :cry:

[TankLV]

17. Maybe if you weren't PROVEN to be such "an emasculated fascist"

to begin with then proceeding to LIE about this STRICTLY REPUKE SCANDAL, and then REFUSE TO MAKE CORRECTIONS TO YOUR REPUKE WHORING LIES, then there wouldn't be such a "fury" and "outrage", huh?

Oh, and BTW, there were NO OBSCENE comments, not one, or you would have gleefully reported them all over the place. That is what you LYING REPUKE do, you know!

So, even in your crybaby retorts when called on the carpet with PROOF of your LIES, you LIE yet again!

We see how this works. We ain't buyin.