Enough is Enough; When Oops as a Defence Becomes Indefensible

That's it!

This article is about the Washington Post cancelling the pay -to- play dinners which the publisher should have known would have genuinely offended all journalists worth their salt.

Adding insult to injury, in the July 2nd edition, the Neocon, Israeli and AIPAC apologist, John Bolton, was awarded top billing in the Opinions section, in which he advocates for Israel attacking Iran. This member of what Patrick Lang, of the important blog Sic Semper Tyrannis, calls the Neocon Scum is one of those who, because he needs, and actually gets off on the need, to wield a hammer, sees every and all impediments to his simplistic and militaristic view of life as a nail.

A week ago WaPo fired Dan Froomkin who called it the way he saw it more objectively than many columnists. His employer defended the action by pointing to a statistic that proved to them that his column was no longer a sufficient source of revenue.

These are just three examples of why I have come to the view that what WaPo publishes is no longer easily distinguishable from the neocon propaganda of the Washington Times and Fox News Network I can no longer read it without suspicion, looking for and expecting a right wing bias on the front page as well as on the editorial page.

I hope that Gene Washington, E.J. Dionne, and perhaps Richard Cohen and David Ignatius, Ruth Marcus, even Michael Gerson and David Broder, whose overall left versus right orientation is not hard to deduce, but who are not as rabidly one sided as Will, Krauthammer, Kristol and Bolton, will look for and find a more objective forum from which they can continue to inform us.

I hope they will not be the Colin Powells of Journalists.

Update: The Publisher and CEO, Katherine Weymouth, wrote an apology in the Sunday, 7/5 edition, which appears in the Opinion section. Her apology, like so many people who have been caught, included the usual CYA "buts". She insists she didn't sign off on the flier that caused the stir, 0thers do this stuff all the time; and that's just for starters.

I joined the many commenters who piled on, calling for her resignation and to take Fred Hiatt, her editorial page editor with her.

It's sad and a crying shame what's become of the Washington Post since the death of Katherine Graham, it's respected, admired, even revered longtime journalist and publisher.


Leanderthal