In light of the news that the Washington Post either thought so highly of Dana Milbank's work as a columnist to give him a Sunday column on the op-ed page or couldn't afford to pay another salary, Politico's Michael Calderone asked Milbank how his Sunday op-ed would be different. In his regular “Washington Sketch” column, Milbank told Calderone he mostly writes on “what folks are doing wrong.” In his new Sunday column, however, he hopes to “make a cogent argument that's not tied to a particular event and doesn't have the word 'yesterday' in it.”

Don't count on many “cogent arguments” in Milbank's Sunday op-eds.

After all, in his attempt today to write about “what folks are doing wrong,” Milbank himself is wrong.

Very wrong.

Writing about the attempted airline bombing on Christmas, Milbank slams Janet Napolitano:

“The system worked,” was Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's original take on the would-be underwear bomber.

But, as we now know, the only system that worked to prevent a plane from blowing up over Detroit on Christmas Day was the system of luck.

Milbank -- throwing around names again -- goes on to call her “System Worked Napolitano” and criticized White House press reporters for not asking her about her initial comments during yesterday's press conference.

Perhaps that's because there was no need to. Those reporters either already knew that Napolitano's “system worked” comment was taken out of context or they had already asked Napolitano about the comments and she explained to them that the comments were taken out of context.

In fact, in her December 27 comments, Napolitano was describing the systemic response to the attack, not the circumstances leading up to the attack:

One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight. We instituted new measures on the ground and at screening areas, both here in the United States and in Europe, where this flight originated.

So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.

The conservative noise machine immediately dissected and distorted Napolitano's words and she was forced to explain them on the December 28 edition of Today:

I think the comment is being taken out of context, what I'm saying is once the incident occurred, moving forward, we were immediately able to notify the 128 flights in the air on protective measures to take, immediately able to notify law enforcement on the ground, airports both domestically, internationally, all carriers, all of that happening within 60 to 90 minutes."

Still, Fox News continued to beat the drum that Napolitano should or might be fired.

And finally, Milbank joined Fox's chorus, bringing the slant to the Post's news pages.

To review, not only is Milbank advancing a troublesome conservative talking point, he's doing so nearly two weeks after the rest of the conservative noise machine first invented it - at which point it was immediately debunked. And he's criticizing other reporters for not falling victim to it!

He should fit in just fine on the Post's Sunday op-ed page.