photo by dionhinchliffe

Washington Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander decided to move the apostrophe in his job title this week. He’s not the readers’ representative; he is a reader’s representative. And that reader, "sports media consultant" Ari Fleischer, has a complaint about the Post’s Maureen Dowd wannabe, Dana Milbank, over whom Deb Howell made her Ombuds bones excoriating Milbank for wearing hunter blaze orange on Keith Olbermann to comment on Dick Cheney’s hunting accident.

Ari Fleischer, George W Bush’s first White House press secretary and now a prime mover and frequent cable gasbag for shadowy right-wing fearmonger group Freedom’s Watch, allowed OmbudsAndy to identify him in his complaining reader role as a "sports media consultant" which, before we even reach the core of the complaint, shows everyone that Ari has no reason to buff his legacy. No, he’s out of that business entirely — the dirty politics. Now he seems to be just a citizen hustling sports media empires for some bucks, while hoping to get an "urban myth" shot down after its repetition by Milbank the Trivializer.

Ari’s complaint about Dana Milbank is that he repeated the widely held perception of Fleischer’s 9/26/01 podium command to Americans to "watch what they say, watch what they do" as chilling  of free speech shortly after the worst terror attacks on American soil.  In fact, the White House transcripts initially omitted this line completely, and only as corrected can we determine that, yes, that was exactly what Ari Fleischer said about Bill Maher, even though he didn’t say it "exclusively" about Maher’s statement that the 9/11 terrorists weren’t cowards, because they were willing to die for their cause.

"We have been the cowards," Maher added, "lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away; that’s cowardly."

Apparently, even though no one remembers it now and it was never really part of the shocked public discussion of Ari Fleischer’s response, he earlier in the briefing mentioned some idiotic comment by a GOP Congressman that everyone "with a diaper on his head" should be investigated for complicity in the attacks on America. And Ari’s point nowadays is that Dana Milbank mischaracterized his statement as being "exclusively" about Maher (which Milbank didn’t) and called Ari’s statement a "denunciation" of Bill Maher (which it was certainly taken as at the time). Maher’s ABC network program "Politically Incorrect" was cancelled the following June, although the far-reaching and far-right Sinclair broadcast ownership group had dropped his program from their ABC affiliates months earlier.

Nothing could be a better indicator that Fleischer’s podium comment about Bill Maher was "chilling" than having a pro-Bush station ownership group refuse to air his show and then seeing the network cancel it. People realized, as Ari had said, that Maher’s remarks were

reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that

OmbudsAndy accuses Milbank of being

journalistically wrong. Context is important, and a full reading of the transcript casts the remark in a different light that, at a minimum, suggests ambiguity.

So, even though Dana Milbank quoted Fleischer verbatim and described the effect of the "denunciation" exactly how many Americans and most commentators heard it at the time (despite a later characterization by alert non-American Christopher Hitchens as a "slander") OmbudsAndy spanks Milbank:

The White House transcripts tell us precisely what he said. But we don’t know what he intended. A cardinal rule of journalism: Don’t assume.

I ask you: couldn’t Deb Howell have written that closing paragraph? Does the WaPo Ombuds contract require that, first, you spank Dana Milbank early in your tenure for offending Bushies and, second, you immediately devote an entire column to that spanking?  And nowadays, why bother to respond to offended Bushies, especially if they are now mere "sports media consultants" with no apparent political ax to grind?

I mean, it’s not an urban myth that Ari Fleischer said that about Bill Maher.  Calling Dana Milbank a peddler of this urban myth is journalistically wrong. 

And finally, if OmbudsAndy is going to move the apostrophe and regularly become a reader’s representative instead of the readers’ representative, his focus will be too narrow and his granularity too fine. There will always be a complaining Bushie with an ax to grind and a legacy to maintain, even Bushies who are nowadays simply "sports media consultants" with seemingly no political oar in the water.

If the WaPo needs to respond to every single complaint from Bushies, the paper should get Fred Hiatt to devote the opinion-editorial page to it every day.

Oh, wait….

Related posts:

1. Dana Milbank’s Time Management Problems
2. Dana Milbank’s Very Small Folder
3. Nico Pitney Slaps Dana Milbank Around
4. Late Late Night FDL: The Mechanical Monsters
5. Dana Milbank’s 750 Word Quota and the Future of Progressive Activism