WaPo’s Milbank Defends Heritage Piece: Panel Devolved Into ‘Muslim Baiting’

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank got some flak today for what some media critics and conservative pundits said was an exaggerated take on a Heritage Foundation panel’s supposed antipathy towards a Muslim woman in attendance. Video posted online of the event was picked up and led some to accuse Milbank of hyping it up when he said that the panelists got “ugly” in going after a Muslim questioner.

Appearing on Al Sharpton‘s show today, Milbank dismissed the criticisms from “a lot of the folks on the far right,” as well as POLITICO’s Dylan Byers, who also objected to Milbank’s characterization. Milbank said Byers just based his criticism on a nine-minute clip, and furthermore he wasn’t in the room.

Milbank argued, “To be in that room, there is no doubt that it began as a Benghazi event and devolved into this sort of Muslim baiting… You had to see the shouts and the taunts in the crowd to appreciate what they had done to this woman there.”

Milbank also made it clear that despite suggestions to the contrary, the event was very clearly a Heritage Foundation event.

Watch the video below, via MSNBC:

And you can watch part of the controversial panel discussion here:

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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