January 18, 2007 -- 10:18 AM EST // //
DANA MILBANK OMITS KEY FACT, MISCHARACTERIZES QUOTES TO MAKE CASE THAT MULTIPLYING DEM BILLS AGAINST ESCALATION ARE...GOOD FOR BUSH.
Okay, so we have a new feature for you here at The Horse's Mouth: The Peter Pan Press Award for the most outstanding examples of childish, silly, we'll-never-grow-up political coverage. And today's winner is...The Washington Post's Dana Milbank!
Milbank wins for his column today, because it omits a key fact and mischaracterizes quotes in order to make the startling case that the proliferation of Democratic bills against escalation is...good for President Bush. As noted here below, Milbank's effort yesterday was pretty eye-opening, but today's is even more unsightly.
Milbank states his thesis as follows:
If anything, the competing proposals could strengthen Bush's hand. Though largely united in opposition to Bush's plan, members of Congress, carved up by the presidential ambitions of Clinton, Obama, Dodd, Biden and others, can't unite around an alternative.
Let's check out some of what Milbank does in order to make the case that Dems "can't unite around an alternative." First he tosses off a bunch of meaningless snark -- Joe Biden accidentally referred to Senator Levin as Senator Lugar! What a fool! Then, in reporting on Hillary Clinton's comments about the Biden-Hagel-Levin-Snowe resolution -- which declares that escalation is against our national interest -- Milbank completely misrepresents her remarks and even omits a key fact that would have gotten in the way of his effort to portray Democratic disunity. Milbank writes:
Biden's group vacated the room at 3:01 p.m. because the Clinton entourage had booked the studio. The New York senator wasted little time dismissing the Biden plan."I certainly will support that," she said. "But from what I've heard out of the administration thus far, I think we will eventually have to move to tougher requirements on the administration to get their attention."
But wait -- how on earth is that "dismissing" the Biden plan? Clinton said she will currently support this resolution, and added that it may "eventually" be necessary to move on to other measures. No "dismissing" at all. What's more, Milbank omits a rather critical detail: Clinton has already agreed to co-sponsor the Biden measure. From Clinton's release on the Biden bill yesterday:
I will co-sponsor the Biden-Hagel-Levin-Snowe resolution and look forward to supporting this legislation when it reaches the Senate floor.
So Clinton is "co-sponsoring" the legislation and "looks forward to supporting" it. Yet Milbank wants you to believe that Clinton was "dismissing" the legislation -- more proof that Presidential ambitions are keeping those squabbling, ambitious Dems from backing each other's measures.
Look, are Dems in perfectly unanimous agreement on what to do about Iraq? No -- nor should one expect them to be. And will Presidential ambitions lead to some dueling for attention among Dems? Of course -- and they should. This is known as debate. Have these debates produced divisions that are getting so bad that they're hobbling Dem efforts to take on Bush? There's absolutely no evidence yet that such divisions -- rather than the institutional difficulties Congress faces in confronting the President on such matters -- are the thing that's preventing Dems from blocking Bush's war policies.
If anything, the obvious conclusion from these events for now is that such dueling -- rather than helping Bush -- is leading Dems to be more aggressive as a body in opposition to Bush's war policies than they might otherwise have been. This zeal to prove otherwise -- to the point where a reporter is willing to mischaracterize quotes and omit key info -- is just deeply inane and childish. Stop it.
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