Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

And:

Another Word on Deborah Howell and Howard Kurtz: From poynter.org:

Poynter Online - Forums: From VANCE LEHMKUHL: Re: Your Howard Kurtz item. Kurtz says Deborah Howell's statement about Democrats receiving money from Abramoff was not a lie, only "inartfully worded," and cites the phrase "have gotten Abramoff campaign money" as though this was the only instance in that column of her referring to this concept.That's wrong, though. As Kurtz must know, the other reference was beyond artful or inartful; it was simply untrue: "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." No. Schmidt did not report (nor has anyone else to date uncovered) Jack Abramoff himself making ANY campaign contribution to Democrats. Howell and now Kurtz should apologize for continuing to parrot this falsity.And:

Brad DeLong : Two Lies from Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps: Skimming this morning, I spotted two lies from Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell. No doubt there are others as well. She writes:

Getting the Story on Jack Abramoff: [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....

On October 18, Sue Schmidt and Jim Grimaldi wrote: "Abramoff, whom DeLay once described as 'one of my closest and dearest friends'..."--with no caveats about how the closeness was not personal but political. On December 29, Sue Schmidt and Jim Grimaldi wrote: "DeLay, a Christian conservative, did not quite know what to make of Abramoff, who wore a beard and a yarmulke. They forged political ties, but the two men never became personally close, according to associates of both men..."--with no caveats about how DeLay nonetheless called Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends." At least one of these stories is false. Certainly both are, at best, "incomplete."

And another:

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.

Abramoff gave money to Republicans only. Some Indian tribes that hired Abramoff as a lobbyist also gave some money to Reid and Dorgan. But is that "Abramoff money"? Only for a certain definition of "Abramoff money"--and not an innocent one.

And:

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?: In which I am reminded of why we call the Washington Post's Susan Schmidt "Steno Sue"...

David Kurtz today, August 20, 2010:

BFF: Tom Delay: "Jack Abramoff is still a friend of mine."

Steno Sue, December 29, 2005:

DeLay, a Christian conservative, did not quite know what to make of Abramoff, who wore a beard and a yarmulke. They forged political ties, but the two men never became personally close, according to associates of both men...

Steno Sue, October 18, 2005:

Abramoff, whom DeLay once described as 'one of my closest and dearest friends'...

And:

Clown Show Cage Match: Deborah Howell and Jim Brady vs. Susan Schmidt (Yet Another Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? Washington Post Edition): I can't resist one more snapshot from the Washington Post clown show:

Susan Schimdt, February 22, 2004:

A Jackpot From Indian Gaming Tribes : Under Abramoff's guidance, the four tribes -- Michigan's Saginaw Chippewas, the Agua Caliente of California, the Mississippi Choctaws and the Louisiana Coushattas -- have also become major political donors. They have loosened their traditional ties to the Democratic Party, giving Republicans two-thirds of the $2.9 million they have donated to federal candidates since 2001, records show...

Sure doesn't sound like Susan Schmidt thinks that Abramoff "directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members... from both parties," does it? Yet that's what Deborah Howell and Jim Brady claim:

Deborah Howell, January 22, 2006:

The Firestorm Over My Column : I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.... [T]here is no doubt about the campaign contributions that were directed to lawmakers of both parties.

Jim Brady, January 20, 2006:

firedoglake : Well, they... they objected originally to the fact that [Deborah Howell]... that when she stated it, she made it seem as if [Abramoff] personally was donating to Democrats. But what she meant to say was that he was directing [his clients to give] money to Democrats, which as I said, is beyond any kind of argument...

But Brady's and Howell's conclusion is not the conclusion that anyone but a right-wing loony would get from Susan Schmidt's article, is it? Susan Schmidt thinks Abramoff was directing his clients to give less money to Democrats than they had in the past--"loosen their traditional ties to the Democratic Party"--and more to Republicans, doesn't she?

Remember: As even right-wing ex-Pioneer Press editor and current Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell admits: the Abramoff scandal is not a bipartisan scandal, but a Republican scandal.

And:

Deborah Howell Resurfaces...: She writes:

Policy vs. Reality in Correcting Errors: Corrections also need to be published sooner. Usually, there's a backlog of corrections, as many as 20, waiting to get in. My own experience taught me that waiting to correct mistakes is, well, a mistake. I made an error in January. Because my column runs on the editorial page, I could not correct the error on Page A2. A correction ran the following Thursday on The Post's Web site and my next column acknowledged the mistake. I should have pushed for an A2 or editorial page correction the day after the original column...

An ordinary person, reading this, would believe that Deborah Howell waited a week to correct her "mistake" in January because of the Post's bureaucratic procedures--the bureaucracy wouldn't let her put the correction in on page 2 the following day, and the next opportunity she had to get something in the print paper was the following Sunday. But, an ordinary person would think, she worked hard, and even got a correction onto the http://www.washingtonpost.com/ website on Thursday. That's what the paragaph implies to an ordinary reader, no?

That's definitely not what happened. Howell did not wish or seek to get any form of correction onto page A2 on Monday.

Let's back up. Deborah Howell's mistake? It's about corrupt Republican fixer Jack Abramoff. Here's the relevant portion of her ombudsman column:

Getting the Story on Jack Abramoff: In the fall of 2003, a lobbyist called to tip [Susan] 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...

Here we see two mistakes in her original column. The first--the one she focuses on--is the false statement that Jack Abramoff, Republican fixer, "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties." Jack Abramoff's campaign contributions were all to Republicans. But this mistake is a minor one that stands in for a much bigger mistake, a much broader lie: a tapestry of mendacity to downplay Abramoff's Republican identity and corrupt Republican connections, which we can see above in the passage quoted and also see below in the close of her column:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: January 2006: Republicans... say The Post purposely hasn't nailed any Democrats [in the Abramoff scandal]. 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.

Here's the "correction" Howell offered four days later, the following Thursday:

January 2006: 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.... 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...

As a correspondent pointed out then:

In the readable parts of the document to which she links, Abramoff appears to "direct" $220,000 of contributions to Republicans, and $4,000 of contributions to Democrats.

"'Directed' contributions to both parties" simply will not cut it.

Here's her "next column acknowledg[ing] the mistake":

January 2006: Nothing in my 50-year career prepared me for the thousands of flaming e-mails I got last week over my last column, e-mails so abusive and many so obscene that part of The Post's Web site was shut down.... I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.... I do know... I have a tough hide, and a few curse words (which I use frequently) are not going to hurt my feelings. But it is profoundly distressing if political discourse has sunk to a level where abusive name-calling and the crudest of sexual language are the norm, where facts have no place in an argument. This unbounded, unreasoning rage is not going to help this newspaper, this country or democracy.... To all of those who wanted me fired, I'm afraid you're out of luck. I have a contract. For the next two years, I will continue to speak my mind.

I do know one thing: no newspaper has any business employing an ombudsman who cannot accurately report her own actions of four months ago.

And:

We Need a Professional Linguist, Stat!: Yet another thing that is funny because it is so sad: it is very clear that we need a different word than "reporter" for people who write words that appear in the standard Washington DC press. The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei writes:

Lobbyist Told Reporter of Nearly a Dozen Contacts With Bush: President Bush met lobbyist Jack Abramoff almost a dozen times over the past five years and invited him to Crawford, Tex., in the summer of 2003, according to an e-mail Abramoff wrote to a reporter.... Bush "has one of the best memories of any politicians I have ever met," Abramoff wrote to Kim Eisler of Washingtonian magazine. "The guys saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids."... Eisler confirmed the contents of the e-mail and said he recently provided portions of it to the liberal Web log ThinkProgress because he thought he was dealing with a fellow reporter. The blog posted the contents of the Abramoff-Eisler communication.

In the e-mail, Abramoff scoffs at Bush's public statements that he does not recall ever meeting the disgraced lobbyist and former top Bush fundraiser. "Of course he can't recall that he has a great memory!" Abramoff wrote. Eisler, an editor for Washingtonian, said in the interview that the lobbyist was the source of his exclusive report last month that at least five photographs of Bush with Abramoff exist. Abramoff showed him the pictures, Eisler said....

Bush has said he does not recall ever meeting Abramoff or posing for pictures with the Republican lobbyist at official events or parties. The White House has refused to release the pictures or detail Abramoff's contacts with top White House officials over the past five years. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that "what the president said still stands."... McClellan said that... it would not be unusual for the president to not recall meeting Abramoff."Perhaps he has forgotten everything," Abramoff wrote in the e-mail. "Who knows?"

Eisler said Abramoff did not grant him permission to release the contents of their e-mail and Abramoff is upset that Eisler did. Eisler, who described himself as sympathetic to Abramoff's situation, was trying to show the ThinkProgress reporter that Abramoff was not exaggerating his relationship with Bush.... Eisler's wife, Judy Sarasohn, covers lobbying issues for The Washington Post.

So, let's summarize: Eisler showed the emails to the ThinkProgress reporter, and is now upset because the reporter reported on them. Eisler assumed--based on his past experience with reporters--that the ThinkProgress reporter would not report what he saw, but would at most hint and shade his paragraphs in a pro-Abramoff direction. Moreover, reporter Jim VandeHei does not find this at all strange--that Eisler and Abramoff feel betrayed because a reporter actually reported, and thus violated their expectations (based on lots of experience) that you can show something very interesting to a reporter and count on that reporter not reporting it.

I'm out of my depth here: we need a professional linguistic consultant immediately. Clearly we can't keep calling them "reporters" if the default expectation in their community is well-represented by Jim VandeHei. What should we call them?

But it is funny.

And:

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Yet Another Washington Post Edition): As I've noted before, what got Washington Post national political editor John Harris really mad was when I said that it looked to me as though many of his Washington Post reporters spent a good deal of their time as simply stenographers for their sources--repeating the line the sources wanted without maintaining any critical distance.

Today Jane Hamsher comes up with a fine example of this. Here's Washington Post reporter "Steno" Sue Schmidt and Jim Grimaldi giving the Tom DeLay line of the day on today's page A1:

Sue Schmidt and Jim Grimaldi: DeLay, a Christian conservative, did not quite know what to make of Abramoff, who wore a beard and a yarmulke. They forged political ties, but the two men never became personally close, according to associates of both men.

And here is Michael Isikoff last April 18 giving the Jack Abramoff "if I'm going down, you're going down with me" line.

Michael Isikoff: "Everybody is lying," Abramoff told a former colleague. There are e-mails and records that will implicate others, he said. He was noticeably caustic about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. For years, nobody on Washington's K Street corridor was closer to DeLay than Abramoff. They were an unlikely duo. DeLay, a conservative Christian, and Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, traveled the world together and golfed the finest courses. Abramoff raised hundreds of thousands for DeLay's political causes and hired DeLay's aides, or kicked them business, when they left his employ. But now DeLay, too, has problems--in part because of overseas trips allegedly paid for by Abramoff's clients. In response, DeLay and his aides have said repeatedly they were unaware of Abramoff's behind-the-scenes financing role. "Those S.O.B.s," Abramoff said last week about DeLay and his staffers, according to his luncheon companion. "DeLay knew everything. He knew all the details."

It is a Washington melodrama that has played out many times before. When political figures get into trouble and their worlds collapse, they look to save themselves by fingering others higher in the food chain. Will Abramoff attempt to bargain with federal prosecutors by offering up DeLay%u2014and does he really have the goods to do so? Abramoff has at times hinted he wanted to bargain%u2014possibly by naming members who sought campaign cash for legislative favors, says a source familiar with the probe. But Abramoff's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, says, "There have been no negotiations with the Justice Department." Lowell cryptically acknowledges that Abramoff has been "disappointed" and "hurt" by the public statements of some former friends, but insists his client is currently "not upset or angry with Tom DeLay." Still, if Abramoff's lunch-table claims are true, he could hand DeLay his worst troubles yet.

In light of episodes like this, I am dumbfounded by claims, like John Harris's, that the Washington Post's only asset is its credibility as an objective news reporter. No. The Post sold that asset long ago in exchange for "insider" access. Whether this was a good thing or a bad thing I don't know--but I do know that it cannot be a good thing if the Post continues to pretend that it did not do it.

And:

Things Get Even Funnier (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? Department): Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell says "Uncle."

She changes her line on why no Democrats are in the first tier being investigated in the Abramoff scandal from "stay tuned" to "it's not a bipartisan scandal; it's a Republican scandal."

Deborah Howell, January 15, 2006:

Getting the Story on Jack Abramoff : Schmidt started checking Federal Election Commission records.... 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.... Republicans... say The Post purposely hasn't nailed any Democrats [in the Abramoff scandal]. Several stories... 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...

Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, January 22, 2006:

The Firestorm Over My Column : I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't.... My mistake set off a firestorm. I heard that I was lying, that Democrats never got a penny of Abramoff-tainted money, that I was trying to say it was a bipartisan scandal, as some Republicans claim. I didn't say that. It's not a bipartisan scandal; it's a Republican scandal, and that's why the Republicans are scurrying around trying to enact lobbying reforms...

I would like to know why Deborah Howell thinks various Indian tribes' contributions to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) are "Abramoff-tainted" or "Abramoff campaign money." And I would like to know how to interpret "stay tuned" other than a a claim that the Abramoff scandal is a bipartisan scandal. But I'm happy that she's changed her line on why Democrats aren't in the first tier of people being investigated from "stay tuned" to "it's not a bipartisan scandal; it's a Republican scandal."

And let's give Deborah Howell the final word:

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Deborah Howell/Washington Post Edition): Teh Worst Ombudsman Evar rears her ugly head. The Washington Post's Deborah Howell complains about having to deal with nasty email, and has no sympathy for us who have to deal with her columns:

Deborah Howell - Looking Back, One Year Later - washingtonpost.com: Allegations of bias are difficult. My mail reflects the partisan divide... with conservatives and liberals frustrated and angry. Readers of dissimilar political persuasions will see the same set of facts differently and may read something into a story that isn't there....

This has been a tumultuous year... watching companies die and merge, seeing good journalists laid off or taking buyouts, dealing with bloggers and nasty e-mail. More than 70 staffers took The Post's early-retirement offer.... The Post will have fewer people reporting... those who are doing it will have to work harder.... But... contraction could make The Post crisper, more compact and more readable.... Readers want to know only so much.... The Post needs to be edited to respect readers' time.

My most harrowing experience this year was making a mistake last January in a column about the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The error won't be repeated here, but the backlash was obscene and stunning. Mercifully it went away fairly quickly. Journalists hate to make mistakes; I've never known one made deliberately...

It seems to me that there was a very deliberate mistake made by Deborah Howell in her Abramoff column:

Getting the Story on Jack Abramoff: Republicans [complain that] The Post purposely hasn't nailed any Democrats [in the Abramoff scandal]. 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...

I'm not reading the insinuation that some first-tier Democrats being investigated would be served right up into Deborah Howell's column. It's right there. The insinuation was false, and Deborah Howell knew that it was false when she made it.

Any apology when called on this? Nope:

The Firestorm Over My Column: I will reject abuse and all that it stands for. To all of those who wanted me fired, I'm afraid you're out of luck. I have a contract. For the next two years, I will continue to speak my mind. Keep smiling. I will.