DANA MILBANK, "kept" "sketchwriter"
John Nichols writes for the Nation in this story picked up by Yahoo. He jabs at Milbank, the WaPo, and the NYT, and includes a copy of the Conyers letter. Go there and rate it 5 stars and email it to whomever you can think of to keep it up:
--the Post ridiculed Conyers and the dozens of other members of Congress who are trying to get to the bottom of a scandal that former White House counsel John Dean has correctly identified as "worse than Watergate."
Post writer Dana Milbank penned a snarky little piece that, like similar articles in the New York Times and other "newspapers of record," displayed all the skepticism regarding Bush Administration misdeeds that one might expect to find in a White House press release.
More below the jump
To his credit, Conyers hit back.In a letter addressed to the Post's national editor, the newspaper's ombudsman and Milbank, the veteran House member was blunt.
"Dear Sirs," Conyers began, "I write to express my profound disappointment with...."
[Conyers' letter]
....
The years of the Bush presidency will be remembered as a time when American media, for the most part, practiced stenography to power --and when once-great newspapers became little more than what the reformers of another time referred to as "the kept press."
The Conyers letter, like the thousands of communications from grassroots activists to media outlets across this country pressing for serious coverage of the "Downing Street Memo" and the broader debate about the Bush Administration's doctoring of intelligence prior to the launch of the Iraq war, is an essential response to our contemporary media crisis. That it had to be written provides evidence of just how serious that crisis has grown.
Now this kind of piece appearing in the Nation is not too startling, but gettin it up on Yahoo is a great thing. Many other pieces have been up this weekend, as has been diaried. Just another leak in the damn, another brick in the wall. The WaPo has yet to reply to the Conyers letter, or to mine.
It is becoming increasing difficult for the MSM to decide how to refer to Americans who are pissed off about the lies that took us to war. "Anti-war activists", etc...stuff dredged up out of the Vietnam era. Try to frame this in other ways, to avoid being marginalized. "concerned American", "anti-lying American," , ex-Bush supporter, whatever you might be.
We should continue to support and spread the word.