Redstate

Posted at 3:32pm on May 23, 2008 Earth to Dana Milbank

By Erick

Did you mean to do this? Today you write:

Here are some things we can look forward to learning about Barack Obama:

· That he was mentored in high school by a member of the Soviet-controlled Communist Party.

· That he launched his Illinois state Senate campaign in the home of a terrorist and a killer.

· That while serving as a state senator, he was a member of a socialist front group.

· That his affiliations are so dodgy that he would have trouble getting a government security clearance.

· That there is reason to doubt his "loyalty to the United States."

These and many other implausible accusations were offered by a group of conservatives yesterday -- including a living relic from the House Committee on Un-American Activities -- in a Capitol Hill basement. The charges ranged from the absurd to the merely questionable, but anybody who watched the Swift Boat campaign of 2004 make John Kerry look like a war criminal knows that's not the point.

Dana, my friend, the first two are true.

His communist mentor was Frank Marshall Davis.

And Obama got his successful start in politics in the living room of Bill Ayers.

Just because you might not like the group, Dana, does not mean everything they say is invalid.

And frankly, if everything else on that list is false, those first two should be enough to give non-elitists who live outside the Beltway pause.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Bill Ayers | Dana Milbank | Frank Marshall Davis — Comments (14)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:40am on Apr. 26, 2008 Millbank Continues The Post's War Against Feith

By California Yankee

Please excuse the piling on, I know Erick already posted on this, but I am still compelled to add my two cents.

Dana Milbank continues the Washington Post's campaign against Doug Feith's new book, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism.

The paper's effort to diminish Feith's book began two weeks ago when Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung wrote a hit piece on Feith's book without waiting for the book to be released or bothering taking the time to read the unedited manuscript of an embargoed book of some 528 pages less than six hours before they managed to obtain less than six hours before they went to press.

It seems a little unethical that Ricks and DeYoung forget to mention that they both have books being sold, books which take a bit of a different view of things than the three Post writers' versions of what is contained in Feith's book.

I feel at least as qualified as DeYoung, Milbank or Ricks to write about Feith's new book. Even though, like the three of them, I have not yet read War and Decision. At least I took the time to talk to Feith about the book and his experiences before writing this. Earlier today I was fortunate enough to participate in a conference call with Doug Feith and other bloggers including some RedState colleagues. As Pejman Yousefzadeh posted, we engaged in an interesting hour-long discussion about the book.

Read on, there is more.

Posted in Biased Media | Dana Milbank | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:46pm on Apr. 25, 2008 The Book the Washington Post Doesn't Want You To Read

Because you can't handle the truth

By Erick

The Washington Post has declined to review Doug Feith's War and Decision. On the grounds that Tom Ricks and Karen DeYoung wrote about book on March 9th, the paper feels it has been given sufficient coverage in its august pages. The Post is apparently not concerned that Ricks and DeYoung had their unedited manuscript of an embargoed book of some 528 pages (excluding notes and appendices) by their own admission for less than six hours before they went to press, and that in the course of these six hours they conducted interviews with Feith and Bremer and wrote their article as well as quickly flipping through it for the juicy bits--a hectic schedule that explains why their piece ignores large segments of the book and does not mention any of the material Feith publishes for the first time (they condemn the book as including "surprisingly little new" information). This is no matter to the editor of the Post's Book World. That article is good enough for the likes of War and Decision. It counts as their formal review and there is simply no room for further consideration--it would be too repetitious. After all, the Post has its standards.

Or does it?

Read on . . .

Posted in Dana Milbank | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision | Washington Post — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »