(WaPo) Paper Shutters Blog After Ombudsman Post

[jefferson_dem]

Paper Shutters Blog After Ombudsman Post
Jan 19 7:28 PM US/Eastern

The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper's ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans.

<SNIP>

In her Sunday column, ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote that Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties," prompting a wave of nasty reader postings on post.blog.

There were so many personal attacks that the newspaper's staff could not "keep the board clean, there was some pretty filthy stuff," and so the Post shut down comments on the blog, or Web log, said Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com.

"We're not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it," Brady wrote on the newspaper's Web site. "There are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech."

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/19/D8F82TA80.html

[mom cat]

1. Oh my God...How can they handle it if someone tells the truth!

[babylonsister]

2. They print lies, and then can't handle the heat

that inspires. Tough shit! Tell the truth and they won't get that kind of response.

[AndyTiedye]

21. That's Why They Usually Put Them in The Paper And Not On the Blog

We can shout back at them on the blog, but when they lie in the paper
all we can do is write LTTEs that nobody ever sees.

[NanceGreggs]

3. Why aren't the Democrats demanding ...

... that people like Deborah Howell put up, or shut up?

You say there are Dems who took Abramoff money? Name them.

If you can't, then shut up. If you can, do so - and leave yourself and your employer open to a libel suit, should the allegations not be proven.

Show 'em or fold 'em ...

[rodeodance]

8. the removed info was captured prior to removal--somewhere on DU today

[jefferson_dem]

9. More at G-D link here ->

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=185787

[babylonsister]

10. Dems did; here's Skinner's thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x185787

[NanceGreggs]

13. Sorry, I should have been more precise ...

Why isn't the Democratic Party, as an organization, making an 'official' demand?

I never doubt that Democrats, as individuals, are on to this crapola - especially here at DU. I'm suggesting that legal counsel for the Democratic Party should be threatening the MSM and people like Howell with the 'name them or shut up and face a libel suit' strategy.

[wordpix2]

18. I agree-if Dems are taking Jackoff $$, who are they? Repuke names known,

show your damn cards, who you got, Howell?

[Psephos]

30. Dorgan already returned his money, back in December

Harkin, Reid, and Stabenow had their accounts fattened, too.

Jee-zus, doesn't anyone google here before posting?

Reid's weird apology today for biting into the repugs yesterday can only mean there is more to the story than we know, and I don't think it's in our interests to find out the details. So let's let that big ole dog keep sleeping.

From what I can see, it's about three to one (roughly) repugs to dems on the take here. Which makes this a largely, but not completely, repug scandal. The media is already digging through this (scandals sell papers) - why help their cause by pretending there is *no* dem dirt? There is, but the public will rightly pin most of it on the repugs as long as we don't set ourselves up for blowback.

Wake up, politicians are a corrupt lot, regardless of which party they're in. If anyone here thinks party affiliation is a predictor of resistance to corruption, then it's clear some people need to spend a few hours with a poli-sci history text.

Anyway, a lot of the money flowed through Abramoff surrogates, especially the Indian tribe contributions. So it's a question of parsing and definition whether any given politician "took" money "from" Abramoff. I've had enough parsing and definition from bushco to last the rest of my natural life. It would be nice not to hear it from our guys, too.

This scandal is a gift - it could deliver a Democratic majority in at least one house of Congress in November. Piling on after the tackle leads to penalties in football - the same idea applies here.

These are my opinions, nothing more, nothing less.

Peace.

[progressivebydesign]

33. Dems did NOT take money from "Abramoff". Period.

They recieved donations from CLIENTS of his, in an unrelated fashion. In fact, donations, by the tribes Abramoff worked, went DOWN when it came to Dems, and up to Republicans.

Here's an easy way to understand all this. Say you hired a lawyer. Your lawyer was corrupt and funneled money to corrupt politicians. You.. being a Democrat, gave money to Democratic causes. Did you participate in your lawyers corruption? Did the recipients of your donations participate? No on both counts. Just because your local politican received money from YOU, while your lawyer was corruptly making direct donations to CORRUPT politicians in return for favors, has NO bearing on you or your recipient. Apples and Oranges. Now.. had your lawyer arranged for you to donate to a speficic politician for quid pro quo, or if he took your money and used it for corrupt purposes, with your knowledge, then you'd be in deep shit. Donations that are related to Abramoff, simply because someone happens to be his client, means nothing.

[Psephos]

35. You're either uninformed or parsing...neither is good

As I said in my earlier post, this scandal is a gift to us, as long as we don't get greedy.

To pretend that taking money from Abramoff clients after Abramoff arranged the "donations" is somehow completely different from having Abramoff shove a lunch sack full of twenties across the table is disingenous. Do you not understand how money changes hands in politics?

One thing that bugs me a lot about true partisans is that everything is black and white to them. Please tell me you understand there are degrees of complicity here, and that Democrats by the dozen received money from Indian tribes and others of Abramoff's list. If you are only reading partisan websites and blogs, broaden your reading to include some nonpartisan sources.

This is what many here are failing to acknowledge: there's nothing wrong with taking donations from Indian tribes - *unless* there's a quid pro quo. No one's shown QPQs for Democrats yet. That's why I said let's not try to overpump this thing. Why do you think Reid backed down and apologized? Seriously? Out of the goodness of his heart?

Naivete has no place in politics except among its losers. If you believe, by some miracle, Abramoff money slushing around in Washington passed only into repuke pockets and left Democrat pockets untouched, then you understand very little about politics and even less about human nature.

Once again, this scandal is a gift. The only way it stops being a gift is if we overplay our hand. On a continuum reaching from ethically pure to felonious, there are dozens of politicians of both parties touched by Abramoff money in one way or another. The public will not notice, or at worst, will soon forget about, all but the few clumped at the felonious end of the scale, and to our good fortune, those are almost all repukes. That's the real truth of this scandal: not that there are no Dems involved, but that the worst offenders are repugs. By a sizable margin, hallelujah.

I don't doubt your intentions for a moment, ProgressiveBD, but your lawyerspeak about the meaning of "take" will be the death of us. Let's just sit back and let this fire fan itself, lest we get burned by blowback from our zealotry to prove how pure Dems are (they're not). Once again, I ask you: WHY DID REID BACK DOWN? Something wicked this way comes....

These are my opinions, nothing more, nothing less. Always rendered in the faint hope that we will learn from our mistakes and prevail in the next election.

Peace.

[baldguy]

36. GOPers took money from Abramoff. Dems took money from his victims.

BIG difference

[Psephos]

37. His "victims" were his clients

and they understood very very well the uses of money in Washington. Otherwise, they would not be the clients of a lobbyist.

No one gives money away in Washington without an expectation of seeing something in return. Some of it is legal, a smaller fraction of it is ethical, but no fraction of it is naive.

Look, in a football game, when the score is 28 to 14 with 6 minutes left on the clock, you play a prevent defense and a conservative offense. You're *already winning* so why take chances? Same thing applies to this scandal. We're already winning it, why invite micro-inspection of every Dem's accounts by pretending *not one single Dem* is anything but pure of heart and chaste of corruption? Anyone remember Gary Hart????

Peace.

[baldguy]

38. Abramoff was cheating his clients, playing them off against one another.

What the Indian tribes were doing is legal. What them Dems were doing is legal. What Abramoff & the GOP were doing is illegal. That's not pretending - those are the facts.

You may not like the fact that pols take money from lobbyists - but they do. And there are laws which govern this activity. The GOP has behaved as if those laws didn't exist - or that they only applied to Dems. ENOUGH! THE FUTURE OF AMERICA IS AT STAKE HERE!

The first step in returning this country to the people is to get the MSM to admit the truth about rampant Republican corruption - and broadcast it. This whole WaPo incident is part of that.

[Psephos]

39. You are making the exact same points I made

which makes me wonder if you read what I posted before you replied.

I'm on your side, baldguy.

Peace.

[Straight Shooter]

4. "pretty filthy stuff," I hope they mean her lies about contributions. n/t

[wordpix2]

19. good one, SS

[NVMojo]

5. I read that blog on this subject and there were numerous posts there

corrected them and I saw nothing filthy, unless they just hate the truth?

[Dhalgren]

29. You're right! I went to the Archive capture expecting to find some

hard core filthy flaming; but there was nothing but very polite dissatisfaction. There were some hard words of truth, but no cussing or name calling, at all. I don't get how the Post can just out-right lie about the contents of the emails to Ms H. It is just one more nail in the coffin of their credibility...

[DRoseDARs]

6. I still can't find any "profanity and hate speech" in the comments...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=185787

[cyberpj]

7. Translation: Fear the Internet. Too much freedom. Let's monitor it. nt

[rodeodance]

11. see this DU thread for the removed comments

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x185787

[tavalon]

12. Check out the other thread. Skinner saved the posts

They were not, as purported, personally inflammatory. They were quite informative though, indictingly so.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/archive/2006/wapo/

I saved it to my hard drive. I recommend others do the same.

I'm also planning on sending Ms. Howell a 42 page long email every day (guess how many pages of replies she had?)

[rodeodance]

14. te he I sent it to her today also.

[tavalon]

26. Yeah, I was going to send it as an attachment

Then, I thought better of it. I cut and pasted it into the letter.

It was sweet.

[Jade Fox]

20. Excellent butt-kicking, people. And NOT vicious, etc.....

merely on point.

Lest anyone forget, people like this woman get paid BIG BUCKS for what they do. They especially don't have the right to demand kid glove treatment regardless of their behavior.

[Moochy]

15. "vicious, name-calling attacks"

Oh cry me a river, and welcome to the fucking real world, Mr Jim Brady Executive Editor

[Jade Fox]

16. Try not lying...

then you'll get a lot less profanity and "hate speech". :eyes:

[brentspeak]

17. "There are things we said we would not allow..."

How about erroneous information (lies?) spammed out by your own ombudsman? That would be a good start.

[AndyTiedye]

22. They Should Shutter the Ombudsperson Instead

[Beam Me Up]

23. So the Washington Post joins the New York Times as yet another

example of obsolete and totally compromised corporate "journalism".

Good by, WP, NYT, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc., we don't NEED you any more.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

34. They've been there for a couple of decades.

With a few notable exceptions.

[UpInArms]

24. The TRUTH is profanity and hate-speech to GOPpiggies.

The Post is merely showing that the truth is not welcome.

[aquart]

25. Yeah, the readers are the problem. That's the ticket.

[Steve A Play]

27. I e-mailed them a link to the thread by Skinner

and the pages and pages of "filthy" comments so they can judge for themselves! This could get really good! :)

Thanks Skinner! You done good. :thumbsup: :kick:

[Rose Siding]

28. Now the AP is perpetrating the lie

snip>
"At the center of a congressional bribery investigation, Abramoff gave money to Republicans while he had his clients donate to both parties, though mostly to Republicans."

Is there any evidence that Abramoff did this? I was under the impression that donations from his clients to dems decreased once he started to represent them.

[grasswire]

31. they did the same thing with Susan Schmidt

When readers were complaining about her involvement in the Starr investigation. She personally wrote to me whining about my (polite but pointed) comments about her lack of professional ethics. And then they changed her email address so readers couldn't reach her. And said that critics were abusive and cruel to her.

[baldguy]

32. Mr Brady, a "healthy public dialogue" begins with the truth.