Was everything quoted in his piece accurate? Absolutely. Were his words or description of what transpired accurate? Hell no.

An interesting column from Mollie Hemingway from a few years ago. From Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Dana Milbank by Mollie Hemingway. At one level, one might read that as inter-journalistic rivalry.

However, Hemingway's point is more substantive than that. She is accusing Milbank of journalistic malpractice. She points out that he has an established track-record of misrepresenting events by using standard deception tactics.

A great example of Milbank making stuff up

You don’t need to invent quotes out of whole cloth to make stuff up. Here is how Milbank described a panelist interaction with the audience member:

“Are you an American?” Gabriel demanded of Ahmed, after accusing her of taking “the limelight” and before informing her that her “political correctness” belongs “in the garbage.”

This, my friends, is why people loathe journalists. They twist and turn and play gotcha games. Also, they make stuff up. A good editor in my past told me that he was always suspicious of reporters who rely on breaking up a quote multiple times and adding in their own words in between. It means they’re trying to force the speaker to say something. We can now call this the Milbank Rule. I mean, was everything quoted in his piece accurate? Absolutely. Were his words or description of what transpired accurate? Hell no.

Here is an actual transcript. Still totally interesting but not about questioning citizenship:

And since you're the only Muslim representative in here, you took the limelight instead of speaking about why our government -- and I assume are you an American? -- You're an American citizen -- So as an American citizen you set in this room and instead of standing up and saying a question or asking something about our four Americans that died and what our government is doing to correct the problem, you stood there to make a point about peaceful moderate Muslims. I wish you brought 10 with you to question about how we can hold our government responsible. It is time we took political correctness and throw it in the garbage where it belongs.

If you listen to the panelist, you can tell that this American woman has a thick accent. She’s from Lebanon. In Milbank’s world, she’s just described as “of a group called ACT! for America” before this section is introduced. She’s not described as an immigrant who assumes the Muslim woman is also American and who is asking for the purpose of making sure her use of the first person plural is correct.

Also, her point is completely covered up by Milbank, who has a history of treating non-liberal women he covers with disdain. (Seriously, it’s a problem. It should be condemned by his colleagues.) Her point is that the four dead Americans in Benghazi are more important than politically correct speech that coddles and infantilizes citizens. It’s not a bad point. It would be a good one for Milbank and his ilk to heed. In fact, the Muslim woman concedes the point in her follow-up.

There are other examples in Hemingway's article. Her basic point is that Milbank is not reporting, he is deliberately misreporting and nobody is holding him accountable. Even if his were purely an opinion piece, we would still hold him accountable for misreporting events.

I especially like the formulation of that critical reading rule:

A good editor in my past told me that he was always suspicious of reporters who rely on breaking up a quote multiple times and adding in their own words in between.

I am not sure I have seen that codified before. The Milbank rule, that's a good cognitive tripwire.