Ombudsman

Apparently, one Ms Howell is the Washington Post "ombudsman" (or umboðsmaður as we like to call it).

As many know, she was recently enveloped in a shit storm of complaints, after she dismissed readers complaints that she explicitly asserted J Abramoff had bribed democrat as well as republican congresscritters.
Abramoff, as anyone who can read and cares knows, is a republican and made all his donations to republicans.

Well, the good lady apparently misspoke, after much heat, and deletions of terribly mean comments on the associated Washington Post blog, it was conceded that her words were imprecise, and they merely meant that some of Abramoff's clients had also donated money to democrats, at some point. And, you know, because they are mindless automata, all donations any of Abramoff's clients ever made were both at his direction, and felonious. QED.

I wonder. Did Jack Abramoff ever buy the Washington Post? Did his clients ever make a habit out of buying the Washington Post, or even taking out advertisements in the Washington Post.
I have no evidence that they did not, and every reason to suppose that they did.
Clearly all this money diverted to the Washington Post was at the direction of Abramoff, and by association there must have been something criminal about it.

So, what Ms Howell meant to say was that Abramoff bribed, or directed his clients to give probably felonious donations to, Republicans, Democrats AND the Washington Post

Clear?

PS in her column, Ms Howell writes:
"...To all of those who wanted me fired, I'm afraid you're out of luck. I have a contract. For the next two years, I will continue to speak my mind."

Now, I don't know what the Washington Post employment terms are for their Ombudsman, but I can reasonably infer that it is NOT a free association op-ed position, the job is to represent the readers' concerns.
Be nice if the Ombudsman were to actually do that little job.