Milbank:

What the minority leader lacked in audibility, he had in embellishment. His prepared text said "close to 2,500 U.S. troops killed" in Iraq; he made it "about 2,500." His text said the war is "costing over $8 billion per month"; Reid made that "costing us $10 billion a month." The text described as "good news" the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the forming of an Iraqi cabinet; Reid left that out entirely.

Is it me, or is it Milbank?

Reid strayed from his prepared remarks. This is described as "embellishment."

Changing "close to 2,500" to "about 2,500" is evidence of this embellishment. If that's a sin, then I've gotta be a lot more careful with my own choices of words, I guess.

Another, more fitting, description of an embellishment is offered, but Milbank does nothing to independently evaluate these numbers.

Somehow, a reference that was in the prepared text, but not in the spoken remarks, is a final example of Reid's embellishment.

Doesn't Milbank attend these things for a living? Is he truly this sensitive and critical to a speaker varying from his prepared script?

Or does he resent having to pay attention to the actual spoken words, rather than just reading from the printed document?