Getler: Casualties and Coverage in the Balance (addresses Milbank)

[Halliburton]

<snip>
There was a torrent of critical e-mails and calls about a Washington Sketch column on June 17 by Post columnist Dana Milbank that appeared in the news section and was about the unofficial hearing on Iraq held by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and other opponents of the war the day before. I thought it was a serious mistake for editors to assign a columnist to cover a news event. There are large numbers of people who oppose the war and care about what Conyers was trying to accomplish, and a reporter should have covered the event as news. If a columnist wants to write a separate piece with his take on it, that's fine. But it is not enough by itself.
<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/25/AR2005062500862.html

[Mandate My Ass]

1. What a half-assed excuse

The fact that it was in the news section tells you what you need to know. They finally had to address this issue because of C-Span coverage and they wanted to ridicule it and diminish its importance. A columnist covered a news event the way he was supposed to and they put it in the news section deliberately.

This was NOT a hearing for opponents of the Iraq War. It was a hearing about the evidence of the president LYING to the country about the intelligence in order to justify an illegal invasion!