Jim Brady whining about the Howell Flap in WP: "Why are people so angry?"

[Sparkly]

To recap: WP "ombudsman" Deborah Howell wrote that Abramoff donated money to both Democrats and Republicans; after she was criticized for that lie, she "corrected" it to say that he "directed" money to Democrats. The response on their blog was furious. Brady shut down the WP blog AND removed the entire page of comments, claiming they were obscene. Skinner posted the comments, showing otherwise. Yet today, Brady complains:

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.

In today's whinefest, he shows he STILL doesn't get it.

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

It was NOT corrected, he STILL hasn't corrected it, writing today:

"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."

Did he read the comments? Or was he too busy writing this little "boohoo" about all the terrible things people wrote to him?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021100840.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. kick

[ClassWarrior]

2. K&R

NGU.

[seabeyond]

3. "Why...... we are tired of incompetence. lazy. inaccurate reporting

that is why i am angry.... jim

[tridim]

4. The WP is a "family newspaper"?

Is lying to score political points for the GOP a family value?

[Octafish]

7. Bush Crime Family Paper.

Still, Poppy calls the Moonie Times his favorite.

Must hurt terribly, like the Truth.

[Botany]

5. At the bottom of the post article Brady has his e mail addy.

i sent him a long one yesterday ....... saying I am from Ohio and I am
sick of the press covering bush's ass on everything.

Send and e mail ..... and let him know why what he did was wrong.

[Sparkly]

6. Poor baby -- "mugged by the blogosphere!"

I don't know if he can handle any more emails!!

[Pithy Cherub]

8. Thin-skinned is definitely a requirement to work at WaPo.

Integrity is optional, ethical reporting is occasional, lying is permissable, trading access for truth is lauded at the highest levels of WaPo and shilling for the bush administration is a backslapping contest to see who does it best. The elite media whores at WaPo :spank:are so out of touch with regular Americans that they can not understand that regular people can fact check their purposeful sloppiness faster than the worthless WaPo highly compensated editors. Sheesh! :eyes:

[Garbo 2004]

9. Blloomberg news service got it right in its analysis of tribal donations

if I recall correctly. Abramoff's native American clients gave more to Dems until they got hooked up with Abramoff. Then they gave more to Republicans. If one were to infer anything from that, it's that Abramoff influenced them to give money to Republicans.

Unless the WaPo is sitting on evidence that Abramoff specifically "directed" them to give to Dems, Howell has no basis for her statement. From what I've seen reported, giving money to Dems isn't what Abramoff and the K Street project was about. All I have seen in the media was an email from Abramoff (perhaps to Scanlon?) complaining that his stupid clients are still giving money to the "wrong" people, i.e., Dems.

Howell's supposed to be the Ombudsman, not a Judy Miller wannabe, not an op ed writer. One would have thought that factual accuracy would have been the goal of the position and the WaPo. Apparently not.

Remember, this is supposed to be the WaPo that stood up to the potty-mouthed and powerful Nixon administration. Now it's "shocked, shocked" that people are angry at Howell's continued misstatements of facts after she and the WaPo were made aware of the facts? And now the mighty WaPo faints at a barrage of harsh language from some of its readers?

The WaPo complains it's being "mugged" by bloggers while the Republic is being mugged, rolled and cannibalized for power and profit by a corrupt junta that controls the three branches of government. Which is the greater threat to an independent press and the nation, Mr. Brady? And why won't the WaPo have Howell really correct the record to accurately reflect the known facts as presented by the Bloomsberg analysis and Abramoff's own emails? Isn't that her job?

The WaPo's "outrage" over unseemly comments simply distracts from the fact that the WaPo's Ombudsman STILL hasn't presented the facts and only has perpetuated what we and the WaPo well know is simply Republican/White House spin. When is the WaPo going to get off its fainting couch and correct the record to accurately reflect the facts?

[Sparkly]

10. Exactly -- and it was quoted and linked in the comments

many times over. If they were able to find all these "obscenities," why couldn't they find the truth in all those posts?

:kick: