Typical Liberal Behavior On The Post’s Blog

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Mighty curious how the Washington Post was aghast at the vitriol left on their blog after they “dared” to print a story that was actually even-handed.

Have they no knowledge of DummiesU or the KosKiddies? I mean Crude profanity and vulgar personal attacks are the modus operendi of leftists worldwide. They have no argument, they have no common sense, all they do is engage in petty name calling.

Comments Turned Off

As of 4:15 p.m. ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely.

At its inception, the purpose of this blog was to open a dialogue about this site, the events of the day, the journalism of The Washington Post Company and other related issues. Among the things that we knew would be part of that discussion would be the news and opinion coming from the pages of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We knew a lot of that discussion would be critical in nature. And we were fine with that. Great journalism companies need feedback from readers to stay sharp.

But there are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech. Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we’ve decided not to allow comments for the time being. It’s a shame that it’s come to this. Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it’s a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about.

We’re not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it. Any thoughtful feedback on that (or any other issue) is welcome, and you can send it to executive.editor@washingtonpost.com.

Thanks,
Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

Whats this all about? It’s about a reporter who doesn’t let her bias get in the way of her reporting.

The Post’s two-year investigation into lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s dealings is one of the best and most explosive pieces of investigative journalism this town has seen in a long time.

The story has moved inexorably from Abramoff being a top dog lobbyist to his pleading guilty to scamming Indian tribes and fraudulently buying a Florida-based fleet of gambling ships. With Abramoff’s pleas, some members of Congress look as if they are moving swiftly to enact lobbying reform just ahead of the sheriff.

[…]In the fall of 2003, a lobbyist called to tip Schmidt that Abramoff was raking in millions of dollars from Indian tribes to lobby on gambling casinos. Schmidt started checking Federal Election Commission records for Abramoff’s campaign contributions. Lobbyists also file forms with Congress that give information on clients and fees.

Schmidt quickly found that Abramoff was getting 10 to 20 times as much from Indian tribes as they had paid other lobbyists. And he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties.

“It was enough to get me interested,” Schmidt said. She also came across Michael Scanlon, a former aide to DeLay who operated a public relations firm doing business with tribes.

Schmidt called tribal leaders around the country, looking for Indians who had access to information and were suspicious of Abramoff. Her first big story, on Feb. 22, 2004, revealed that Abramoff and Scanlon had taken an eye-popping $45 million-plus in fees from the tribes.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) began a congressional investigation, and the Justice Department started its own probe. Schmidt kept tabs on those, as she had done for six years as the lead reporter on investigations into the Clinton administration, including the Monica Lewinsky case.

One piece of information led to another; Schmidt was often ahead of the investigators. “It was incredibly complicated, an unbelievable, ingenious, enormous web of fragments” around Abramoff’s deals, she said. Schmidt had only one interview — in February 2004 — with Abramoff. She said he lied about having no financial ties to Scanlon; federal investigators later showed they split fees.

Schmidt asked about the purchase of SunCruz Casinos, a story well known in Florida but not in Washington. “His reaction was so startled, so convulsive, that I knew I was onto something,” she said. Schmidt and Grimaldi started looking at Abramoff and his stake in the SunCruz ships that took passengers into international waters to gamble.

Grimaldi and Schmidt spent days in Florida federal courts looking at SunCruz bankruptcy records. Grimaldi came across a bank loan application on which Abramoff listed as references Tony Rudy, then DeLay’s deputy chief of staff, and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.).

“The eureka find was that there were congressional links to this fraudulent casino deal. He had been telling local reporters that he had little to do with SunCruz. Yet the evidence was hiding in plain sight in court records,” Grimaldi said.

[…}One of the troves that kept the story expanding was Abramoff’s e-mails. He was an inveterate e-mailer, and those e-mails found their way to Schmidt.

[…]Schmidt, Grimaldi and Smith reported on Abramoff’s ties to members of Congress and their staffs, whom he lavishly wined and dined, took on expensive foreign trips, and gave skybox seats at local sports events. Smith obtained a travel invoice to Scotland and England for DeLay; the invoice had a credit card number. After aggressively working two sources, Smith found out it was Abramoff’s credit card.

Two persistent complaints have come the ombudsman’s way on this story. One, from Democrats, is that The Post is trying to distance DeLay from Abramoff because a Dec. 29 story said the two were not personally close. DeLay had once called Abramoff “one of my closest and dearest friends” and said on Fox News recently that they were friends.

Schmidt and Grimaldi said that their reporting showed that the two were politically, not personally, close. Whatever the degree of closeness, the strength of Schmidt’s and Grimaldi’s reporting has tied the two together inextricably.

The second complaint is from Republicans, who say The Post purposely hasn’t nailed any Democrats. Several stories, including one on June 3 by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, a Post business reporter, have mentioned that a number of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), have gotten Abramoff campaign money.

So far, Schmidt and Grimaldi say their reporting on the investigations hasn’t put Democrats in the first tier of people being investigated.

But stay tuned. This story is nowhere near over.

She reported the facts and that is all. She knows as well as anyone with a minute amount of common sense that the Democrats got plenty of his money, as directed by him. Republicans got the majority of the cash of course since we are the majority in power, as the Democrats were during the Keating 5 scandal. Ring a bell?

So after the typical name calling and “intelligent” discourse by the leftists the Post has to shut the blog down. The author then answers her critics:

Deborah Howell Responds

I’ve heard from lots of angry readers about the remark in my column Sunday that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties. A better way to have said it would be that Abramoff “directed” contributions to both parties.

Lobbyists, seeking influence in Congress, often advise clients on campaign contributions. While Abramoff, a Republican, gave personal contributions only to Republicans, he directed his Indian tribal clients to make millions of dollars in campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.

Records from the Federal Elections Commission and the Center for Public Integrity show that Abramoff?s Indian clients contributed between 1999 and 2004 to 195 Republicans and 88 Democrats. The Post has copies of lists sent to tribes by Abramoff with specific directions on what members of Congress were to receive specific amounts.

One of those lists can be viewed in this online graphic, while a graphical summary of giving by Abramoff, his tribal clients and associated lobbyists can be viewed here. The latest developments in the Abramoff investigation are available in this Special Report.

— Deborah Howell, Washington Post Ombudsman

After which you can read the comments left by these dummies. ALL of them come down to “you don’t know why the Indians gave to the Democrats, they are free people you know”

Amazing that when there is just a bit of information that will show the Republicans in a bad light these people jump all over it but they cannot admit that members of their own party are just as dirty. I mean their leader Hillary is one of the most corrupt politicians in the Senate but will they admit it…nope.

So after they shut down the blog the Executive Editor, Jim Brady, responds to a Q&A:

thaca, N.Y.: How is it ever acceptable for a newspaper to silence its critics?

Jim Brady: How has The Post “silenced its critics”? We’re having a discussion right now in which — believe me — I can assure you there are more critics than supporters. We shut down comments on one blog on a site than has 30. You can e-mail or snail mail letters to the editor. Deborah’s e-mail is available on the site. There are plenty of avenues to critique what happens at the newspaper or web site. We don’t have an obligation to keep every one of those avenues open if we run into problems like we did yesterday.

[…]Pensacola, Fla.: After reading the over 400 of the comments in question, which by the way, were saved by someone before they were removed, I saw no hate speech, one four letter word, and I can’t imagine what you found so offensive as to remove them. Could you please explain exactly what problem you had with them?

Jim Brady: You were reading the ones that were posted live. There were a few hundred others that were removed the site altogether, and those would not be on the page you’re looking at.

[…]Chicago, Ill.: I agree that readers calling Deborah Howell a “b****” or a “wh***” or those using other profanity should not have used those words. But why does The Washington Post feel it is necessary to provide a sanitized version of the comments? (this assuming the number of foul comments overflowed your capacity to delete them). The comments obviously are not attributed to your paper. So again, what harm was being cause by letting these comments (along with the rest of the well-researched comments) stand?

Jim Brady: I think it goes to basic human decency. You may not like Deborah Howell or her column from Sunday, but like you, she’s a human being. She shouldn’t have to read people publicly calling her a “b****” or a “wh***,” and we’re certainly not going to allow that on our site. Does anyone out there really think that adds anything to the discussion? If you need to use that language to make your point, I’m sorry, you don’t have one. You want to critique the column, go ahead. You want to say we we wrong, fire away. You want to call one of employees a “b****” and a “wh***,” you should go somewhere else.

In the end it can be quite funny to watch liberals. They are almost exactly like insects. You poke the leftyhill with a stick and watch them run around really fast and insane-like, and eventually settle down, and then you poke them again.

Of course when they hit the bong you have to wait till they gorge themselves and then poke em again.


In the end it can be quite funny to watch liberals. They are almost exactly like insects. You poke the leftyhill with a stick and watch them run around really fast and insane-like, and eventually settle down, and then you poke them again.

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The less-loopy Left might do well to stop concentrating on their putative enemy (George Bush) and start turning their attention to their “friends.”