Prometheus 6

Campaign Desk — August 03, 2009 05:02 PM
Post Pulls Milbank’s “Mad Bitch” Video
But further expanations are still in order
By Greg Marx

When The Washington Post started drawing heat for its latest “Mouthpiece Theater” video, in which Post staffers Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza suggested it would be appropriate for Hillary Clinton to drink “Mad Bitch” beer, the paper made the problem go away—literally. As a Post spokesperson noted via email to several outlets, including CJR, the video was removed from the Post Web site Friday evening. Search for it by title now on the “Mouthpiece Theater” home page, and this is what you’ll find:

There doesn’t appear to be any official record of the decision to remove the video elsewhere on the site, either—not in the corrections column, not on the page that collects Milbank’s work, not on Cillizza’s blog “The Fix,” where the post promoting the video is still in place, but the player itself is unresponsive. And no mention of the decision has been appended to the transcript of Cillizza’s live chat from 11 a.m. Friday, which included three links to the video by the time the sixth question was answered, and where another prominent link to “Mouthpiece Theater” features a screenshot from the episode in question. (Clearly, the paper didn’t initially have any misgivings about the piece.)