Milbank defends pre-war press coverage against Helen Thomas

[Rose Siding]

A Giant of Journalism Comes Up Short
...
The second (part of her book) is a rather unpleasant rehashing of the liberal criticism of the press's performance before the Iraq war. Here, Thomas departs from personal anecdote and merely recites some of the millions of words that have been devoted to the cause in previous books, articles and blogs. It is an effort unworthy of a woman who, whatever her late husband was, truly is a journalistic icon.

<snip- Here Dana supplies some of what he supposes are not soft-ball questions from the press -snip>

This is not to take anything away from Thomas's long and impressive career in the White House press corps. Neither should it be said that the press did a wonderful job in the run-up to war in Iraq; the self-critiques are voluminous.

But the press was hardly the only institution caught napping on the story of weapons of mass destruction (congressional oversight committees, Democratic leaders and a lethargic public come to mind). And the sort of questioning Thomas currently practices, amounting to argument more than query, is not the sort of questioning any generation of journalists practiced -- not even in the salad days of United Press International, before it collapsed and Thomas became a Hearst columnist.
...
Presidential press secretaries patronize her by repeatedly addressing her as "Helen" so her identity is clear in the transcript. "We will temporarily suspend the Q&A portion of today's briefing to bring you this advocacy minute," former press secretary Ari Fleischer said during a tussle with Thomas. Tony Snow dubbed her "Secretary of State Helen Thomas."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/16/AR2006071600809_pf.html

And the party invitations come rolling in...
http://www.wonkette.com.nyud.net:8090/images/2006/05/milbank.jpg

[Hand]

1. Note to Milbank...

Helen Thomas craps bigger 'n you... :dunce:

[orwell]

2. Rewriting His Story...

"But the press was hardly the only institution caught napping on the story of weapons of mass destruction (congressional oversight committees, Democratic leaders and a lethargic public come to mind)."

Uh, clue phone to Dana. The largest global anti-war protests in history, on a sustained basis, rolled on for months before this blood bath started. Many members of Congress, almost all Democratic voiced strong concern - Sen. Byrd and Congressman Kucinich come immediately to mind. No, it was bloodthirsty warmongers like you and your ilk Dana who refused to listen, with most of the toadying press waving the flag and selling Hummers. And countless people are dead or in abject misery because of it.

So, go have another manhattan, wolf down a juicy blood-rare steak and pat yourself on the back.

Mission accomplished baby, mission accomplished...

[MessiahRp]

3. But wait, we were just a focus group

Rp

[Neecy]

4. Here's a clue, Dana....

The public wasn't 'lethargic', it was uninformed thanks to you and your lapdog cohorts. Uninformed about the PNAC ideology that led to this insane war and occupation, uninformed about the clearly trumped-up WMD charges and the evolving reasons for the invasion, uninformed that our 'president' lied repeatedly and lies to this day, uninformed about the war profiteering, corruption and lack of basic infrastructure in Iraq that we destroyed that TO THIS DAY hasn't been repaired and the money has just disappeared, uninformed about the junketeering, well-paid mercs who shoot up Iraqi civilians like they're cast members in a video game, uninformed about how Afghanistan has been a massive failure, uninformed about the torture and war crimes and atrocities until they pop up through sources other than the mainstream media...

I could go on for days, but to blame an UNINFORMED public for their shitty corpo-whoring is just obscene!

[trumad]

5. Sorry Dana... that Dog won't hunt....

Let the revisionist history begin... The Neo-cons are doing it and now here comes their lapdog press Kool Kidz....

[warrens]

6. There were literally millions of people disputing the WMD story

I was marching in negative 20 degrees, the coldest I have ever been, a month before the war and the main poster at the rally said something to the effect of WMD FICTION.

Hans Blix stated clearly that they had looked everywhere and found nothing, and asked for another couple of months to make absolutely sure. The Bushies, meanwhile, kept repeating things they knew, and the press knew, were lies or had been rebutted. No one who was paying attention thought there were any significant WMD in Iraq.

Now, three and a half years later, they're rewriting history the Bushies' way, to cover up their own incompetence and willingness to believe whatever the clones in the White House told them. After all, you were either with Bush or with the terrorists, right? Isn't that what the U.S. is about? Freedom, freedom of the press, the pursuit of happiness EXCEPT when the president decides that none of that applies?

[Rageneau]

7. Oh, yeah, the MSM did a FINE job of debunking the pre-war lies.

He insists that his little band of reporter buddies asked all the right tough questions. And, giving credit where it's due, a number of reporters truly DID ask important questions in the run-up to Iraq.

The problem with that alabi, though, is that once Scotty or Ari or whomever deflected the question or refused to answer it, the MSM dropped the subject like the Parole Board in "Raising Arizona."

They seemed to say, "Okay, then."

Then the next day their papers or networks came outwith nothing but the official BFEE propaganda in the headlines. There was no doubt expressed as to whether the administration might be lying, or even mistaken. It was all "Hoo-ah" and yellow ribbons. And the press wasn't merely REPORTING such things, it was PROMOTING them.

Meanwhile, the other side of the story was there all along, but didn't get pursued or published. I didn't see Scott Ritter on the news, insisting that there were no WMDs. I didn't see David Kaye or Hans Blix. What I saw, day after day, in the MSM was Condi, Donnie and Dickie trying to scare us with 'mushroom clouds' while the MSM crawled under the table, praising Smirk and begging him to protect them.

Milbank, like today's GOP, seems to think nothing of revising history in order to make himself and his colleagues look less quislingesque than they truly were.

Or, for that matter, are.