Remember the slogan the Washington Post adopted in February 2017 soon after Donald Trump was inaugurated as President? “Democracy Dies In Darkness.” Well, apparently that has been tossed down the memory hole by that newspaper’s columnist, Dana Milbank, whose attitude now seems to be “Democracy Dies In Daylight.”
Militant Milbank made clear he adheres to the new journalistic philosophy on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton on Sunday when he went a step beyond merely complaining, as much of the liberal media is currently doing, that Tucker Carlson is the first to be allowed to look at the 40,000 hours of security camera footage at the Capitol from January 6, 2021. Milbank makes clear that he doesn’t want the public to see that important footage at all. The lame excuse he gives is that it would somehow compromise security.
MILBANK: According to Matt Gaetz himself, this is one of the things that Kevin McCarthy promised, to release all of this footage. Of course, he’s not released it. He’s released it specifically to Tucker Carlson, who can edit it and doctor it any which way. Look, I understand why the other media are asking for the same thing. The truth is, this doesn’t belong in the public domain for anybody. In Kevin McCarthy’s sort of cravenness to cater to the Matt Gaetzes and the Tucker Carlsons, he is risking the security of himself and of his colleagues and of the Capitol itself.
So, you know, it’s the sort of thing that if this footage is in the hands of any media, as happens with any national security information that’s in the possession of the media, they need to work with the Capitol Police and others so they don’t compromise the security of the Capitol. You can be pretty sure that’s not what Tucker Carlson’s going to be doing with this information
Michael Steele agreed, and suggested that Tucker Carlson might send some footage to his pal Vladimir Putin in Russia.
Of course, the idea of a supposed journalist demanding that the public see LESS information came in for widespread mocking reactions the most notable of which came from Glenn Greenwald:
Dana Milbank works at a paper which flamboyantly adopted this motto when Trump was elected: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Here he is arguing against transparency: arguing the public has no business seeing any of the 1/6 footage except what Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney released. https://t.co/nnaGmCUv8t
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 27, 2023
Time for the Washington Post to come up with a slogan more in line with their new post-Trump attitude.
This anti-disclosure posture was supported in part by Downy Unstoppables fabric softener (that’s Procter and Gamble).