Discussion:

“… turned ugly …”???

Excuse me? It was seriously ugly months before it even started. The whole faux outrage over Benghazi has been nothing but ugly.

So, Dana Milbank, who was there, is being castigated by people who were not there, about tone policing?

Is there no end to the ridiculous stuff these people will whine about?

I mean after all, this “stellar” panel is pretty much made up of every talking head representing every hobgoblin arglebargle org out there who spends their every waking hour making Muslims the target of their spittle flying hatred and racist bigotry.

I’m 50/50 most of the time on Milbank, but when it comes down to him or Dylan Byers? I already know whom to believe isn’t being an hysterical DudeBro…

The audience wasn’t even given drool cups. That is so unfair.

By that standard, the only Real Americans are the residents of Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana.

Now you’re getting the idea. But I’m not so sure about parts of Indianapolis or virtually all of Gary.

"He also objected to Ahmed for steering a panel discussion focused on Benghazi to “a war on Islam and attacks on Muslims.” "

Wait .
You invite the Arab Pamela Geller, a one-trick pony Islamophobe con artist who makes her living by attacking the Muslim faith in front of right wing Jews and Christians and you object?
What the hell else was this silly harridan there for but to attack Muslims?

Well I was, of course, talking about Real Indiana.

The irony being that the archtypical “American” accent of the Midwest is the result of Scandinavian and German immigrants who homesteaded isolated prairie farmsteads before they learned English and learned all their pronunciation from dictionaries rather than native-born Americans who spoke it as a first language.

OMG HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF BEING UNHINGED! NOW I AM GOING TO SIC MY READERS ON YOU TO STALK YOUR HOUSE AND MAKE THREATENING PHONE CALLS TO YOUR HOUSE!

adding random text here because it seems TPM comments doesn’t like all caps, even when clearly in jest.

Nobody cares about Benghazi. Even the Far Right panel was eager to change the subject to demonizing Islam with the added bonus of having a woman in a burka on site to beat up on, too.

With Syria, Iraq and Ukraine all engaged in civil wars and Gaddafi dead, only a bunch of DeMint’s stooges would bother wasting their breath on a country with no major boogieman threatening the world.

Continuing to dance on the coffins of the dead makes the old fools in the GOP appear obsessed with the macabre and tin foil conspiracies.

I’ve mentioned before that part of my family is Asian(Chinese) American. My sister-in-law was raised Catholic and opposes abortion. One nephew just left the Army as a Captain after serving in Afpak. My niece has an MBA from an elite school and is working for a big corporation. Another nephew is a high-level medical tech working on gene research. They shocked me the Thanksgiving before the last election by all being vocal Obama supporters in spite of their relatively conservative world views. But the racism, homophobia, gun obsession and general bigotry of the Republicans really frightens them. They should be natural allies of movement conservatives, but they are lost to the right for at least a generation.

This is less about faux outrage and more about a longer term trend of bullying the press to write the stories they want.

Sure, reporters should develop thick skin, but when it becomes a continuous, set your clock by it,barrage of attacks on every article that doesn’t bow down and worship the right, then eventually some reporters calculate that its just not worth the headache. So they stop writing articles that put the right in a critical light.

Not that Milbank is a paragon of progressiveness. But he doesn’t work at Fox and won’t be anytime soon, either.

Hemingway also faulted Milbank for failing to note that Gabriel “has a thick accent” and is a Lebanese immigrant

Yes of course, because the measure of the thickness of one’s accent determines one’s level of patriotism and 'Murikinism…or something insanely crazy talky like that.

“She hijacked the discussion for her own agenda. The panelists responded. Predictably, and no doubt coordinated among the left, it was then used to attack Heritage,” Erickson wrote…

Yup.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, pwned!

Jeez, can’t a bunch of nice Republicans enjoy a little racism rally without some liberal spoiling the fun by writing about what happened?

This woman is a good Muslim. A good Muslim is a Muslim that lives in a free society and follows his or her conscience. What they did to this woman was pig-ignorant.

Bad Muslims live in countries where their faith is so tenuous that they must remain as Muslims under pain of death. They must also cover their heads (if they are female) by law though this is not stipulated in the Koran. I do not like Christian extremists but at least I understand them These people are beyond reason.

“no doubt coordinated among the left”

Ah, if only that were true Erick. If only we were so well organized.

+1 for “harridan”

These pundits are not conservatives. They are insane human specimens. They are filled with hate. They are ignorant. They are being paid to be insane.

Gee a howling Gooper mob versus one lone woman. Even with those odds she still has more stones that the lot of them.

Ordinarily not a fan of Milbank but good for him pushing back the commissars.

I think we can all safely conclude that those who weren’t there can shove their biased criticism since they weren’t there. You can opine on the issue, but Milbank was there at least and would have a more sincere likelihood of knowing what he’s talking about (because he personally witnessed things) than any of the shrill Muslim haters who atttacked him online later. They are ‘sure’ it’s a left-wing this or that nonsense, when all it is is rank paranoia and hate by these scaredy children.