“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 …’”
According to Howell’s column, one congressional aide said the “full quote” from Obama was, “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.”
Howell also tracked down the original Weisman-Milbank source (still not identified) “who told me the quote didn’t reflect arrogance.”
In other words, there’s not a single witness (not even the original source) who supports the Weisman-Milbank spin on the partial quote. Nevertheless, since there was no tape of the meeting, “Post editors refused to publish a correction,” Howell wrote.
Amazingly, the Post also has refused to publish any letters to the editor disputing the distortions in Milbank’s column. All the Post’s critics can expect, apparently, is the half-hearted lessons-learned column by Howell.
Among those lessons learned for reporters, Howell wrote: “Anonymous quotes should be used sparingly; this one wasn’t worth it. If you weren’t there, be careful about judging the context.”
Insult and Injury
Besides the quote distortion, some Post readers have protested Milbank’s interpretation of Secret Service protective measures for Obama as evidence of Obama’s arrogance, rather than reasonable steps by the Secret Service to defend against death threats aimed at the first African-American with a serious chance to be elected President.
In an online chat, Milbank responded to reader complaints as “whines” and deemed himself a “Whine Enthusiast.” [For more on Milbank’s column, see Consortiumnews.com’s “WPost Calls Out ‘Uppity’ Obama”]
Though many in the Washington press corps quickly recognized that the Post had botched the quote, few journalists dared speak out clearly against the city’s most powerful newspaper.
While most journalists avoided antagonizing the Post, the botched quote – the latest supposed proof of Obama’s arrogance – spread far and wide.
The quote even surfaced in a McCain attack video, entitled “The One,” which mocked Obama as a false Messiah who saw himself as a modern-day Moses. Some experts on Christian fundamentalism saw the ad as a message to right-wing extremists that Obama was the anti-Christ who must be stopped.
On the Internet, Obama-haters, including some still-angry supporters of Hillary Clinton, circulated the quote as further reinforcement of their views.
One Clinton diehard, Carolyn Kay of Makethemaccountable.com, forwarded to her mailing list a cartoon of Obama sitting on a toilet with his pants down, masturbating, as he gazed at himself in the mirror while thinking, “I have become the symbol of America returning to our best traditions.” [No, I won’t link to this cartoon.]
Sometimes the hatred of Obama – along with the eagerness to smear him – seems all-consuming, transforming usually rational people into purveyors of falsehoods and filth. Kay started her Web site in 2000 in reaction to the major media publishing distortions about Al Gore.
“It scared me to see how the mainstream media were propping up George Bush while faithfully reporting every stupid lie that the Bush campaign made up about Al Gore,” she wrote in 2003. “I’ll use every talent I possess and all my energy to try to bring back tolerance, decency, and generosity to the country I love.”
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