…over email, Nico says Milbank whispered “You’re such a dick” into his ear after the segment.
The Ana Marie Cox Tweet:
Sources say that at the end of the Dana/Nico segment, Dana says, “You’re such a dick.” Wishful thinking? Can anyone confirm?about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck
The Howie Kurtz Tweet:
Dana Milbank did not call Nico Pitney a dick or anything else after their Reliable debate, @anamariecox. It was civil. I was there.
On the whole exchange, some left bloggers. Steve Benen:
It’s not in the video, but as Howard Kurtz went on to introduce the next segment, Milbank whispered to Nico, “You’re such a dick.”
I guess he didn’t think the discussion went well.
For the record, Milbank again suggested this morning that Nico “worked in collusion” with the White House, and argued that presidential aides encouraged Nico to ask a question “a certain way.”
Milbank hasn’t produced evidence to bolster his claims, probably because they’re false. As Milbank should realize by now, the White House saw some value in answering a question from an Iranian, and knew Nico was in a position to offer one. Obama didn’t know the question in advance, Nico didn’t work in “collusion” with anyone, and not incidentally, Nico’s question was a good one that the president seemed anxious to dodge. (Honestly, if the White House were really going to “collude” with a journalist and encourage said journalist to ask a question “a certain way,” wouldn’t aides make it a softball?)
It’s a shame Milbank is still bothered by this, but his accusations, days later, remain unfounded. It’s one thing to be annoyed; it’s another to make up relevant details to fit a bogus conclusion in front of a national audience.
Milbank tries to ask Pitney a question about Bush calling on a Fox reporter, but asks it in an inaccurate way. So, let’s pose Milbank’s question as he should have asked it: If there was a Fox reporter who was in contact with a number of Iraqis (possibly on an Arabic language social networking site) and Bush told that Fox reporter that he would like the reporter to ask a question from an Iraqi person at the next day’s news conference, would you see that as inappropriate collusion?
For me, the answer is clearly “no”. And it would be even more clearly “no” if it turned out to be a difficult question.
I understand the point Milbank and others are trying to make, but the way in which they are making it is fundamentally dishonest. The question was a good question and it seems to have come from an Iranian person. Isn’t that good enough?
Just to put this into perspective, think about this: Nico Pitney has spent the last two weeks tirelessly developing sources from inside Iran, aggregating every relevant story available on the internet through every available form of the new communication technology and synthesizing one of the most most difficult and important foreign policy stories of the decade. Dana Milbank has spent the same period bitching about the “low press” getting to ask questions at a press conference and filming snotty little gossip items for his little insider video embarrassment called “Mouthpiece Theatre.”
You tell me which one’s the “real” journalist.
Spencer Ackerman (entire post):
Watch Nico Pitney play 50 Cent to Dana Milbank’s Ja Rule.
I’ve really never had any strong feelings about Dana Milbank. His column is designed to present a reader with color and not substance, and so when I see him at hearings that I cover I don’t read his stuff afterward to make sure that I didn’t miss an important detail like I will with a Siobhan Gorman piece or a Noah Shachtman piece. And that’s fine. There’s clearly a market for people who want to read about politics or policy as a spectacle in a newspaper, and Milbank feeds that market well. It’s not something that I particularly want as a reader, and so I don’t read his material, and I don’t need to, and that’s fine, and everyone’s happy. Takes all types and all that.
But it’s more than a little silly for Milbank to act like he’s a journalistic crusader while writing the material he writes. Here’s Nico, covering one of the biggest stories of the year in an innovative fashion, throwing a tough question at Obama in the process, and there’s Milbank, focusing on… the meta-question of the White House coopting Nico as a public-diplomacy strategy. The trivial mixes very poorly with the serious, and it’s really in poor form to call Nico a dick for pointing that out. I’ve lived in Washington for seven years now, and each passing year I fear that I’ll drink too much of the water that evidently interferes with a person’s capacity for self-awareness.
EARLIER: Nico, Nico, Nico
The Beltway Tries The Internet, The Internet Finds It Trying
UPDATE: Tbogg has the blow by blow in a post called “Dickgate.”
“Now comes the after-action report from Ana Marie Cox:
Sources say that at the end of the Dana/Nico segment, Dana says, “You’re such a dick.” Wishful thinking? Can anyone confirm?
Howie Kurtz whose bread is buttered by the WaPo is all, nuh-uh:
Dana Milbank did not call Nico Pitney a dick or anything else after their Reliable debate, @anamariecox. It was civil. I was there.
Ana Marie is all, yuh-huh:
@HowardKurtz Nico stands by the quote. Obviously, you both were there.
Howie backs off:
Well, maybe it got heated betw Pitney and Milbank after they left the set. I DID suggest (jokingly) that they take it outside.
Nico Pitney jumps back in and tells Milbank and Kurtz to go fuck themselves:
ساعت ۶ امشب از این سایت ارسال کنید: http://bit.ly/mRe8w RT #soal #iranelection
Okay. Not really. But Nico could totally do it in Farsi and Milbank would be all, “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking… you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Oh yeah? OK.” in front of the mirror and then he would once again be the most awesomest reporter in the world and Jodie Foster or Cybill Shepard would love him long time. Or something.”
UPDATE #2: Matt Y
UPDATE #3: Michael Scherer in Swampland:
And then came Sunday. Howard Kurtz invited both Pitney and Milbank onto his CNN show, ostensibly to talk about the issues at play. But both came prepared for battle. Pitney started off, accusing Milbank of all sorts of unrelated–and out of context–offenses, like once “hailing” President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner and once asking Obama about his appearance in a bathing suit, which Pitney termed “pathetic.” These are the sorts of attacks that make politicians look small and journalists look puny, since they are based on misleading isolated opposition research that has little to do with reality. As anyone who has followed the Post knows, Milbank has a long history of fiercely critical coverage of the Bush Administration, and covers the news as a columnist, who often unapologetically revels in the superficiality of politics.
Milbank, in turn, responded by declaring vaguely that Pitney was peddling “fiction” while trying to sabotage his foe with a bunch of paper, including a selection of his own columns and a copy of an email that Pitney had written. The pass-the-paper trick didn’t look very good when Rick Lazio tried it on Hillary Clinton in 2000, and Milbank did not come off much better. Meanwhile, on the interwebbing, the ideological jabberers took their positions, casting the debate in whatever light their readers might most enjoy. Liberal bloggers even created a tag on Twitter to commemorate the event, with wording (#dickwhisperer) that generally matched the seriousness of the discussion. Conservative bloggers pointed to Pitney as further evidence that Obama controls the media. Liberal media watchers played the Bush-was-worse game by pointing out past examples of manipulation of press conference questions.
Jason Zengerle in TNR
UPDATE #4: Joe Klein
UPDATE #5: Bloggingheads with Bill Scher and Matt Lewis
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June 29, 2009 at 11:01 pm
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