WaPo's Dana Milbank Writes a Laughable Defense of Neera Tanden

Joe Biden’s choice to head the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, doesn’t really seem like the sort of person who should be in any government position where someone might disagree with her. She might get angry. And you wouldn’t want to see her angry.

Tanden is a notorious hater who believed the wacky Steele dossier was the truth and that Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election. And if you cross her… look out.

Joe Biden is pulling out all the stops in the apparently hopeless cause of salvaging her nomination, which has been made unattainable after at least one Democrat in the Senate, Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) came out against her nomination and several moderate Republicans also voiced their opposition.

But Biden believes he can play the race card to ram her nomination through the Senate. He’s asked Asian-American activists to lean on senators to get her confirmed.

And he always has the media to go to bat for him when the chips are down.

Leading the media charge is Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, who wrote a defense of Tanden’s nomination that’s “so terrible it should be classified as simping,” according to one tweeter who ganged up on the hapless Milbank.

Milbank asked: “What terrible things did Neera Tanden tweet? The Truth.”

We all want healing. We all want unity. But it won’t happen as long as the Party of Trump assigns Democrats sole responsibility for civility, while using President Biden’s admirable talk of unity as a cudgel. Collins moralized about Tanden representing “the kind of animosity that President Biden has pledged to transcend.” In other words, apology not accepted.

And it’s not just Tanden. Senate Republicans this week teed off on Biden’s interior secretary nominee, Deb Haaland, another woman of color, over her 2020 tweet saying that “Republicans don’t believe in science.” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who has cast doubt on the human role in climate change, called the tweet “concerning.”

No, senator. What’s “concerning” is that, after four years of excusing lies, racism, vulgarity, lawbreaking and self-dealing by the Trump administration, your idea of healing is to defeat Biden nominees for speaking the truth.

So she deleted the truth, eh?

— Special Agent Fox Mulder (@FoxMulder010) February 25, 2021

Indeed, Tanden tried a little scrubbing of her Twitter account but missed a whole bunch of stuff anyway.

The truth to include:

– Russia hacked vote totals

– Anthony Kennedy participated in an elaborate Russian bribery scheme

– Every other nutty Russiagate conspiracy theory

Tanden is a lunatic unfit for public service. If Biden really is all in on her, he’s nuts. https://t.co/b1iQwMLEGu

— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 25, 2021

She was also apparently in love with the Steele dossier.

Washington Examiner:

Tanden launched the “Moscow Project” in 2017, and after Buzzfeed published Steele’s dossier in January 2017, Tanden’s think tank released a statement saying, “The intelligence dossier presents profoundly disturbing allegations; ones that should shake every American to the core.” Tanden went on to defend the Steele dossier repeatedly on Twitter, attacking those who critiqued the FBI for relying on its claims to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page and implying that critics of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation were doing Russia’s bidding.

It would be easier to judge her tweets' truthfulness if she hadn't deleted them. But even of those she did not delete, this is false. Tanden was a big dossier defender. Sometimes claimed it was true; sometimes adopted can't-be-proven false standard popular with Resistance. https://t.co/HYqhOKL5Z8 pic.twitter.com/hwMEWlaXYz

— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 25, 2021

Glenn Greenwald points out that some election conspiracy theories are more equal than others.

She tweeted that the real winner of the 2016 election was Hillary, but that Russian hackers invaded the voting systems in key swing states and converted Hillary votes to Trump, which is how he won.

But I guess some deranged conspiracy theories qualify as “the truth” at the Post: https://t.co/8A3mHzTtx8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 25, 2021

She questioned the legitimacy of a free and fair election. That is verboten, right?

"Why would hackers hack in unless they could change results? What’s the point?”

— James Houston (@Atticus1971) February 25, 2021

Can you imagine the outcry against Biden if he pulled the nomination of a female minority candidate? Biden is stuck with her unless Tanden has the good sense to decline the nomination herself.