On Monday, Dana Milbank published what can now be considered the most infamously disgusting hit piece on Obama in this campaign, the message: Obama is presumptuous/arrogant/uppity. It has been called, and rightly so by prominent DC insiders as, "smarmy" and "a lie...was not only inaccurate and factually false...twisted, distorted and misrepresented what Obama said".
But what interests me, is the familiarility of the lede to another infamous article from this campaign. Here's Milbank,
Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.
And of course, here is Liz "donuts" Sidoti,
“Barack Obama chose winning over his word.”
Now that tone is what Ron Fournier proudly coins "Accountability Journalism". And defending the piece, he proudly tells Politico.com,
“But boy, when we can cut through the clutter, and we can say ‘Barack Obama put politics over his word,’ which he did — that’s a fact,” Fournier said. “He did. He may not like the way Liz wrote it, but it is a statement of fact.”
I am of course still waiting for that story from the AP about McCain's negative campaign that says the same thing. I think I will be waiting a long time. And that is essentially one important point with this brand of "journalism". Most people would consider a term such as "Accountability Journalism" to actually reflect journalism that is more accountable. More accountable journalism to me is a journalism that is tough, but also openly and freely admits error. What it is really is is an excuse to to make derogatory comments and shape news about Democrats negatively, while freeing the journalist themselves from any accountability for their reporting.
Media Matters totally and systematically eviscerated Milbank's article this week, summarizing their findings as follows,
In his Washington Post column, Dana Milbank claimed that Sen. Barack Obama "has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee." As purported evidence, Milbank misrepresented quotes, neglected to do basic reporting, and advanced the baseless suggestion that actions Obama has reportedly taken are unprecedented for a presidential candidate.
This really is a must read Media Matters piece, but even they missed a few. Milbank was disgusting enough to cite Obama's private prayer to god as a sign of his "hubris". He reported with no evidence that Obama purposely excluded Ryan Lizza from the trip to Europe and then falsely said, "Even Bush hasn't tried that." Not bothering to research the fact that Dick Cheney kicked the New York Times off his campaign plane for the entirety of the 2004 campaign. He also claimed Obama's pretensions were related to him also doing these things, oblivious to the fact that Obama is a sitting U.S. Senator and that these types of things are actually in a U.S. Senator's job description.
Every single sentence in that article can be debunked.
So what is the response of the Washington Post? Where is the accountability for Milbank for reporting and his editor for publishing such unequivocal garbage? The only thing I can see so far is that Keith has not invited him back to Countdown and a full three days later, the WaPo finally gets around to issuing a meek correction about the misidentification of Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
This column incorrectly said that Sen. Barack Obama shared his views on how to avoid micromanagement with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last Saturday. Obama shared those views with British opposition leader David Cameron.
So what about the quote? The quote that Milbank stole from another WaPo reporter, took out of context, distorted and did not even try to verify with a second source? Not a mention. It seems that what "Accountability Journalism" really means is I say what want about thee Obama with no accountability for me. Or in Dana Milbank's case, I think it is just projection. Because no one can be more pompous than this statement (see the video, he sounds even worse),
If something is important enough, it will be brought to my attention.
Update: Sorry folks for the problems displaying code in the post. Now fixed. Also, the folks over at TPM put together a nice video run down of "uppity" hysteria that gripped the cable news shows based on Milbanks lie. He really should be ashamed.
© Jed Lewison