Rather than acknowledge flaws in Obama column, Wash. Post's Milbank mocked critics in online chat as "whiners"

In a July 31 washingtonpost.com online discussion, Dana Milbank dismissed participants' criticisms of his July 30 column -- a "sketch" of Sen. Barack Obama's "premature presidency" -- as "whines." Indeed, Milbank began the discussion by acknowledging that "some of you have some thoughts you'd like to share about yesterday's Sketch on the premature presidency of Barack Obama," and before taking questions, wrote: "I've decided to approach today's chat as a wine writer would. ... Today, I am inaugurating the Whine Enthusiast, in which I will rate your whines."

The Washington Post itself was not quite as dismissive, publishing a correction to one falsehood (in a column rife with misleadingly cropped quotes, false insinuations, and negligent reporting, as Media Matters for America noted). Milbank falsely asserted that Obama "g[a]ve British Prime Minister Gordon Brown some management advice over the weekend." The Post ran the following correction: "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."

Referring to a July 29 meeting Obama had with members of the House of Representatives, Milbank wrote in his column: "Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, 'This is the moment ... that the world is waiting for,' adding: 'I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.' " Milbank cited the quote in support of his thesis that Obama was becoming a "presumptuous nominee" and as evidence that Obama's "own hubris" may be his "biggest challenger." Several participants in the online discussion, apparently in reference to this quote, accused Milbank of "misquot[ing]" Obama, "omit[ting] the full context of his quote," and "intentionally butcher[ing] Barack Obama's words to sell papers."

Post staff writer Jonathan Weisman reported the quote in a blog post on the evening of July 29 and, like Milbank, said the originally reported quote "suggest[ed] that [Obama] was beginning to believe his own hype." Weisman updated the post on the morning of July 30, reporting that "House leadership aides pushed back against interpretations of this comment as self-aggrandizing, saying that ... [Obama] was actually trying to deflect attention from himself." If the leadership aides' reported version is accurate, the meeting with House Democrats would be far from the first time that Obama has expressed the view that the enthusiasm he generates "is not about" him, as Media Matters has noted.

In his column, Milbank gave no indication that he had contacted the Obama campaign for a response or that he had attempted to verify the accuracy of the quote in any way. But rather than acknowledge in the chat that he had neglected to do this basic reporting, Milbank attributed challenges to the version of the quote originally reported by the Post to "House Democratic aides['] [getting] up Thursday morning and decid[ing] that the quotes looked bad."

During the discussion, a reader from Pasadena, California, asked Milbank: "I do wonder whether or not echoing a Rovian talking point, complete with misquote, is really your best starting point." Milbank responded:

Under challenge is a quote in the story, and in an earlier post on the washingtonpost.com blog, The Trail, by my colleague Jonathan Weisman. We cite a witness to Obama's private meeting with House Democrats telling us that Obama said "this is the moment ... that the world is waiting for" and "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

House Democratic aides got up Thursday morning and decided that the quotes looked bad. While not challenging the quotations themselves, they said that the quotes were out of context. This is interesting, because our source who was among the people complaining about the quotes yesterday sent us the quotes in writing in an email Wednesday night.

Evidently no recording was made, so we'll probably never know the exact wording.

Milbank's assertion that Democratic aides were "not challenging the quotations themselves" presumes that the quote can be accurate even if Milbank omitted surrounding words that refute the interpretation he ascribed to the quote. But the very context that Milbank reportedly left out belies that presumption. Weisman's update to his blog post quoted a leadership aide saying that Obama actually said: "It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign -- that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol." By failing to note the context in which leadership aides reportedly said Obama was speaking -- "the enthusiasm ... is not about me at all' -- Milbank cited a comment that means nearly the opposite of the interpretation Milbank gave it, if the leadership aides' version is accurate.

Moreover, in a July 30 blog post, Atlantic associate editor Marc Ambinder reported that the Obama campaign offered the quote in what they said was its full context:

I asked the Obama campaign about the quote, and they provided some context that makes this particular utterance more digestible.

"It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol..." Obama said, according to the campaign.

In responding to another reader, Milbank wrote: "It should be noted, if it hasn't already, that nobody is questioning the accuracy of the Obama quotes, only the context." Again, it was Milbank's omission of the context that undermined its accuracy. As blogger Steve Benen wrote in a July 30 post at The Carpetbagger Report:

A Democratic leadership aide -- who, unlike the media, was in the room during Obama's remarks -- has been emailing reporters this morning:

"His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him. The Post left out the important first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of: 'It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol...."