Tag Archives: Jennifer Rubin

Dear Mr. Bezos…

When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post last August, the former ombudsman for the paper, Patrick Pexton, did an open letter to the new owner about what he considered “the good, the bad, and the ugly” at the paper.  The ugly was reserved for WaPo’s conservative political blogger, Jennifer Rubin.  Some excerpts:

“Have Fred Hiatt, your editorial page editor…fire opinion blogger Jennifer Rubin.  Not because she’s conservative, but because she’s just plain bad.  She doesn’t travel within a hundred miles of Post standards.  She parrots and peddles every silly right-wing theory to come down the pike in transparent attempts to get Web hits. …

“Rubin was the No. 1 source of complaint about any single Post staffer while I was ombudsman, and I’m leaving out the organized email campaigns against her by leftie groups like Media Matters.  Thinking conservatives didn’t like her, thinking moderates didn’t like her, government workers who knew her arguments to be unfair didn’t like her.  Dump her like a dull tome on the Amazon Bargain Books page.”

I too can’t stand the woman. During the 2012 campaign, Rubin was basically a Romney campaign staffer embedded at a major media outlet, writing gushing schoolgirl love letters to him.  She also focuses so much on Israel that she seems to think she works at the Jerusalem Post.

I’m citing the letter today because she has a post up at WaPo called “The scandal is MSNBC,” in which she says Chris Christie’s problems are all MSNBC’s fault.  She criticizes their allowing Hoboken’s mayor, Dawn Zimmer, to claim that her city was denied Sandy aid because she wasn’t playing ball on redevelopment for property belonging to Port Authority chairman David Samson’s law firm’s clients. 

The thing is, everyone is trying to figure out Chris Christie’s motivation for acts that seem punitive and retaliatory, like the Fort Lee lane closures.  That’s because the Governor himself isn’t offering an explanation beyond “mistakes were made.”  If he had wanted to come on the air before, during, or after Dawn Zimmer, or send a spokesman, MSNBC would have been delighted to have him.  Until he ‘splains in full, the non-Fox media are going to be searching for reasons.

In Rubin’s cock-eyed world, Watergate was the fault of her newspaper, not the Nixon administration.

Jen Rubin Is in Love Again

During the 2012 election, Jennifer Rubin’s “Right Turn” bloggy-column thing at WaPo essentially functioned as a gauzy ad campaign for Mitt.  How Jen loved Mitt, despite the fact that she is Jewish and he is Mormon, despite the fact that they are married to others.  Every day, Jen rose and faithfully posted her school-girlish love letters to Mittens.  So sweet, so sad.  So charming, so creepy.

Right till the end, she refused to believe those annoying, Obama-biased polls, and was devastated when the Kenyan Muslim who hates Israel (the country our Jen loves most) won.

But 100 days into O’s second term, with spring upon us, Jen has recovered and found herself a new man.  Her bloggy-column thing today is a love letter to Chris Christie worthy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  Sorry, Mittens.

A Bit Much, Even for Her

“In sum, when and if Hagel gets through he will be a marginal figure, not likely to be given sensitive tasks and unable to carry weight with lawmakers. For Hagel critics and those privately fretting that he is in well over his head, there is consolation in knowing he’ll be a non-player. The choice of deputy secretary of defense then will take on new importance. Who is really going to run the Pentagon?”  Italics in original.

Jennifer Rubin, Right Turn, WaPo

A “marginal figure,” “a non-player,” when Obama thinks so highly of him?  You don’t go through all this just to ignore the guy.

Right Wing Tries to Kill Hagel by Saying He’s Dead

“He who hesitates is lost”  — and the delay of the Armed Services Committee vote on Chuck Hagel for DoD has created a vacuum that the right-wing is rushing to fill with anti-Hagel venom.

The right is trying to put the Hagel nomination in trouble by claiming that it already is in trouble.  You kill him by pronouncing him already dead.

Tom Ricks, at Foreign Policy, says it’s now “50-50” that Hagel will withdraw.  He illustrates his post with a slice of bread, half of which has been toasted.  Going all Nate Silver, he writes “Bottom line:  Every business day that the Senate Armed Services Committee doesn’t vote to send the nomination to the full Senate, I think the likelihood of Hagel becoming defense secretary declines by about 2 percent.”

At Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, relying on “Senate sources,” i.e., Tea Partier Ted Cruz (R-Texas),  tries to link Hagel to a group called “Friends of Hamas,” which sounds like a Daily Show joke.  Shapiro claims White House Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz hung up on him when he called to ask.

The neo-cons at American Future Fund (Bill Kristol and friends) are running an anti-Hagel on the Sunday talks shows this weekend.  If the vote had happened on Thursday as scheduled, they wouldn’t have had another weekend to grind up Chuck, but Carl Levin gave them this gift.  The gift of time is invaluable when you’re trying to stop a nomination.

Over at National Review, Andrew Stiles has a long post called “What’s Hagel Hiding?” where, based on anonymous sources, he proclaims the nomination in trouble:

“GOP Senate aides say they are not sure why Levin decided to postpone the vote, but suspect that Hagel’s nomination could be in jeopardy.  ‘The only plausible reason they delayed the vote is because they didn’t have enough votes to confirm him,’ an aide close to the committee told National Review Online.  Some Republicans are said to be considering a hold on Hagel’s nomination….

“Now, there is reason to believe Hagel could be in trouble.”

“Multiple sources raised the possibility that the materials Republicans are seeking contain ‘explosive details’ that could prove devastating Hagel’s prospects for confirmation.  Some Hagel opponents strongly suspect he has delivered speeches at events hosted by organizations most Americans would find ‘unsavory.'”

Also at National Review, Andrew McCarthy asks, “Is Hagel Toast?” and tries to link Hagel to the National Iranian American Council, which lobbies for the Iranian government.

Jennifer Rubin, who writes for the Washington Post, but confuses it with the Jerusalem Post, gleefully says this is a “critical” weekend for the nomination she opposes, gets all conspiratorial about Levin, and starts writing Hagel’s obituary:

“Or it might be that Levin, with or without encouragement from the White House, is letting this nominee hang out there for maybe just one more shoe to drop, thus ridding everyone (especially our troops) of Hagel’s stewardship of the military at a particularly challenging time.

“It does seem the weekend is critical.  We will see how vigorously (or not) the White House defends Hagel on the Sunday shows; whether any more Republicans publicly announce their opposition or any Democrats show weakness; and, finally, what documents, if any, Hagel coughs up.  The weekend also gives the White House, if so inclined, to come up with a Plan B — a qualified, competent nominee who won’t scare the living daylights out of the Senate.”

 

Santorum Wants to Protect You by Taking Away Your Birth Control

Jennifer Rubin, who uses her WaPo “Right Turn” blog to shill for Mitt, has a video up today from August 2006, where Rick Savonarola Santorum answers an interview question about birth control by saying, “I think it’s harmful to women, it’s harmful to our society.”  This is the kind of stuff that cost Santorum his re-election bid to the Senate from Pennsylvania.

Matt Drudge, who also shills for Mitt, has a link to Rubin’s post up on his site today.  So a one-two punch from Team Mitt.

Is Callista Newt’s Achilles Heel?

Both Kathleen Parker and Jennifer Rubin have written columns critical of Callista Gingrich.  I doubt that either one has a lot of readers in Iowa, but both do inside the Beltway where Callista lives her privileged life and has to face others in the church where she sings in the choir (a paid gig, by the way, although Newt never mentions that).

I’m wondering if these columns are a way to get to Newt, to “encourage” him not to hang around too long, to help Mitt Romney.  Newt doesn’t much care what is said about him — he’s heard it all — but I think a pattern of going after Callista would have an effect on him.  He won’t want to see her humiliated.

 

Meow! Jen Rubin Bares Her Claws for Callista Gingrich

Jennifer Rubin, author of WaPo‘s Right Turn blog and a Mitt supporter, has the guts to say of Callista Gingrich* what we all have been thinking:

“There was that interview when she begged for Marianne’s forgiveness.  There was the one when she expressed remorse for having broken up a marriage.  Oh, wait.  She’s not done any of that.

“What advice do we expect Callista to give her spouse?  Is she a restraining influence or an enabler?  Is she, as Laura Bush was wont to do, the sort of wife who helps provide perspective to her husband?  Or does she egg him on (go on the cruise, buy the earrings, blast your opponents)?  I have my suspicions.  I think the voters do, too.”

She left out the hair, but this is a start.

*”Callista Gingrich:  Newt’s enabler?”