It was, arguably, The New York Times that first played fast and loose with January 6 truths when it printed a fictional account of the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, reporting, January 8, that the officer had died as a result of being struck with a fire extinguisher.

To use a term hurled by the media at Donald Trump, that report was a "false claim."

The Times has yet to explain how it came to print this false report of Officer Sicknick's death, a report intended, it seems fair to say, to encourage Americans to view the Capitol occurrence January 6 as an act of "insurrection."  And now The Washington Post has checked in with two columns July 28, that suggest the writers are alumni of the George Orwell School of Journalism.

Dana Milbank, wrote a venomous column the day after Pelosi's select committee held its first session.  The column carried this false claim in its heading: "As hearings begin, Republicans side with the terrorists."

In his lead sentence, Milbank accused Republican lawmakers, the day Pelosi's select hearings got underway, of "demand[ing] justice — for the terrorists who took up arms against the U.S. government on that terrible day."  "Terrorists"?  Taking up "arms"?

This is not a political column.  It is an exercise in creative writing.

Milbank acknowledged that six GOP House members, including Rep. Louis Gohmert, Rep. Paul Gosar, and Rep. Andy Biggs, went to the Department of Justice to call, essentially, for fair treatment for the January 6 demonstrators jailed these many months, who, for the GOP legislators, seem to qualify as "political prisoners."

Milbank does not explain what the protesters, held without bail or trial, did to justify his charge that they are terrorists, a charge also raised in testimony from the uniformed officers who appeared before the Pelosi committee in its opening round.  Nor did Milbank explain his assertion that the January 6 demonstrators "took up arms against the U.S. government."  What were they "armed" with — fire extinguishers?

But as with the false claim of the Times concerning the death of Officer Sicknick, commitment to honest reporting is not important at The Washington Post — not when the aim is to ignite a firestorm of opposition to the Republican Party. Apparently, for Milbank, it is a very bad thing "to demand justice" for individuals held for months on misdemeanor charges — without bail or trial — if those individuals are not violence-prone Antifa thugs or people whose way of demanding racial justice is to loot, pillage, and burn down businesses in urban areas.

Milbank's hostility to Republican lawmakers seeking due process and equal protection of the law for pro-Trump demonstrators was also evident when he sarcastically noted that the six Republicans cut short their demonstration in front of the Justice Department building due to leftist heckling.  For a leftist apologist like Milbank, free speech is an issue only for activists who cater to his skewed sense of justice.  From a Milbank, no criticism of heckling from leftists that drowns out conservative speakers.

Milbank went on, again without explanation, to call Rep. Jim Banks "a saboteur."  Is "saboteur" now a term to be applied to any Republican who challenges leftist hegemony?  It is clear that, for Milbank, epithets can be hurled willy-nilly, provided they are hurled at hated Republicans who don't genuflect before Pelosi.  (Pelosi's select committee might, with justification, be known as the Committee Against Proud Republicans In Congress and Elsewhere [CAPRICE].  Pelosi, after all, abhors proud Republicans, and her style of government reflects caprice.)

Before ending his column of political hate, Milbank called the Republican House members seeking fair treatment for January 6 demonstrators "[t]he insurrectionists' allies."  For Milbank, "insurrectionists" — and their "allies" — must be put down, severely.

The "I" word also was thrown about in the column by Karen Tumulty that, in the print edition of WaPo, appeared below Milbank's mendacious and malign morsel of morbid misinformation.  In addition to referring to the January 6 demonstrators as insurrectionists, Tumulty said Republicans are trying to "whitewash" the events of January 6, and that "the rioters were there at the instigation of President Trump" — encouraging "violence," to boot.  For a leftist — activist or writer — the proof is in the accusation.

Tumulty promoted a comparison that is an insult to the memory of the souls lost on September 11, 2001.  She wrote:

[The Republicans] rejected a proposal to appoint an independent commission, modeled on the panel that looked into the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Let's pause here a moment.  Tumulty, along with the left, would equate a demonstration at the Capitol where the only person shot and killed was an unarmed Trump-supporter, Ashli Babbitt, with the dastardly attack of 9/11 that snuffed out, most horribly, the lives of almost three thousand people.

Tumulty should explain that reasoning to Debra Burlingame, sister of one of the pilots who perished on 9/11.  In a Wall Street Journal column, Ms. Burlingame wrote that it was "a travesty" to compare "Jan. 6" with 9/11.

Tumulty went on:

Given an opportunity to appoint five members to the select committee, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R.-Calif.) attempted to stack it with bombastic stuntmen such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — a gambit that Pelosi wisely blocked.

(Pelosi's gambit to clear out the GOP presence on the committee worked like a charm, though.)

Tumulty ignored the pertinent fact that Pelosi named fierce anti-Trump — and anti-GOP — partisans to a majority on the committee.  How could Mr. McCarthy have stacked the committee by appointing a minority of the members?  Tumulty's accusation makes no sense.  But that is the way with leftists.  Confident in their own strident canards, their assertions, their arguments, their attacks founder on the rocks of ordinary common sense.  With an inflated sense of self-esteem, leftists likely assume that the public will accept their blatherings at specious value, but these blatherings make no more sense than Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky."

Matching Milbank, invidious remark for invidious remark, Tumulty, before ending her column, asserted as "truth" that the January 6 demonstrators "carried out what has rightfully been called an insurrection and an assault on this country's democratic system."  Nonsense, indeed.  Note how quick the left is to accuse conservatives of acting to undermine democracy, when it is precisely the partisans of the left who represent the mind of the enemy of freedom by their assault on freedom of speech, the right to dissent, end runs around the Constitution, resistance to duly elected presidents — the wokeness of intolerance.

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