Milbank's Panties In A Twist

I do detect a shade of jealousy.



But beyond that, I think this is one of those defining moments when a member of the old media set ( Milbank ) can't seem to wrap his head around the notion that Pitney has more journalistic moxie than he does.

Going back to many of the questions that were asked during that presser, Pitney's question was head and shoulders above everyone else there. And the meme that he was "planted" and that somehow Obama knew what question was coming is nothing more than a ham-fisted diversion from the very real fact that bloggers are replacing establishment media as a credible source of information.

Apparently, after Pitney and Milbank's back and forth, Dana had something to say to Nico:

The only thing that surprised me was when Dana turned to me after our initial sparring and called me a “dick” in a whispered tone (the specific phrase was, I believe, “You’re such a dick”). Howie Kurtz wrote on Twitter that he didn’t hear it, which is understandable — he was doing the lead-in for the next part of the segment on the ABC White House special. But it happened (I urge Howie to watch the video of the panel during the ABC intro) and it was frankly pretty odd.

So, he's a "dick" for giving Milbank a sound spanking on national television? He's a "dick" for doing a job that Milbank seems to lack the will or even the ability to do?

More from Think Progress.

Johnny Come Lately {or} Making Up A Story So We Can Look Like We Know What We're Talking About

For anyone familiar with "Johnny Dollar", you'll no doubt find this title is a bit predictable:

Milbank: I Was Banned from Countdown for Defending McCain Advisor!

The problem is, that isn't the truth.

Dana Milbank had been working out a deal to move to CNN since at least July 7th - and probably since before then:

Not so, says Milbank. “I started contract talks with CNN on July 7,” Milbank told Big Head DC this afternoon. “It has nothing to do with last week’s column. I like Keith, and I’m sorry he’s angry about my departure.”

The piece that appeared in POLITICO that OlbyWatch si referencing reads in part:

An MSNBC spokesperson confirmed there was a conversation where Black came, but the producer was only joking. The spokesperson said there was no connection between anything Dana said about Black and his not being booked on “Countdown.”

And, if this next segment - also in the POLITICO article - is to be true, it was executive producer Katy Karp that allegedly mentioned that there was an "issue" surround something that Milbank said about Charlie Black.

The "OlbyWatch" piece is nothing more than speculaction from a rampantly-sychophantic right-wing hack. Johnny Dollar and his band of blisfully ignorant compatriots are citing sources ( that they appear to find less-then-valuable ) as viable proof that Olbermann had Milbank removed.

The situation can be easily explained as an amalgam of two things.

Milbank has wanted to work for CNN for a long time and was looking for an "out". That "out" is being exploited and rearranged to look like a feud between Olbermann and Milbank.

The other, is that Olbermann is trying to make Dana's departure for another network look like something that it isn't. Truth-be-told, COUNTDOWN is loosing a great guest, and Keith may have realized a little too late that he should have tried to hold on to Dana. All that Keith is doing now is trying rationalize this anyway he can.

It's nothing sinister, nothing that shows that COUNTDOWN is anything other than what it actually is.

Of course, it would be foolish to think someone like Johnny Dollar would do anything but try and make "something" out of "nothing".