WaPo Drops Curtain on 'Mouthpiece Theater' After Clinton-Joke Flap

By: E&P Staff The Washington Post has ended a satirical political video series after viewers complained about a joke involving Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"Mouthpiece Theater" debuted June 5 of this year in an an experimental capacity, and featured Post staffers Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza in what was designed as a send-up of traditional political debate shows. Among other comedic quirks, the hosts wore smoking jackets and puffed on pipes.

However, Milbank and Cillizza apparently took the joke too far in an episode that was posted on the Post's Web site last Friday. The show, inspired by President Obama's now famous "beer summit," was concerned with what kind of beer certain politicians might like.

"Milbank said he couldn't reveal who liked Mad Bitch beer," Howard Kurtz of the Post wrote Wednesday, "which was followed by a brief shot of [Secretary of State] Clinton." The joke drew a massive negative response, including a letter addressed to Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, signed by 32 members of the organization Women, Action and the Media, condemning the joke as "patently sexist -- and otherwise tasteless -- content."

Kurtz reported that "Mouthpiece Theater" scripts were approved by editors, but the Clinton joke was ad-libbed.

"[The series] was meant to be funny and insightful and translate the superb journalism Chris and Dana do in print and online into a new format," Brauchli told Kurtz. [The joke was] a serious lapse. ... It's really beneath us and not something we should engage in."

For their part, Milbank and Cillizza agreed with the Post's decision and offered their own apologies. "I regret that we put up that image," Milbank told Kurtz, "and while I highly doubt the secretary of state has seen 'Mouthpiece Theater,' I would be honored to have the opportunity to apologize to her over a beer."

Cillizza added his own apology on his political blog, "The Fix."

"I would like to personally apologize for the content in last Friday's video," Cillizza wrote, "as it was inconsistent not only with the Post brand but, more important and personal to me, the Fix brand which I have worked so hard to cultivate."