Tag Archives: Washington Post

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.

Hey Mitt, the Election’s Over

Mitt’s top strategist, Stuart Stevens (whom many blame for Mitt’s disastrous campaign and loss, but really there’s so much blame to go around) is kind of like those Japanese soldiers who fought on in the Pacific long after WWII was over.  But at least they had the excuse of not knowing the Allies had won.

Stevens is still fighting over Pinocchios, specifically the four that Mitt got from WaPo‘s fact checker Glenn Kessler for his ad claiming that Chrysler was moving American Jeep jobs to China.

In response to Stevens’ request for fewer wooden puppets, Kessler is sticking with his original four, the most you can receive.

Maybe Stevens would have done better last November if he’d focused more on his own wooden boy and less on Kessler’s.

Mitt the Cry Baby

Mitt’s campaign is insisting that WaPo retract its story from last week asserting that Bain specialized in helping grow companies that offered job outsourcing services to other U. S. companies.  They have demanded a sit down with the Post!

Meanwhile, President Obama is running ads in swing states saying we don’t need an “Outsourcer in Chief.”  Amen to that.

Mitt is whining that we “little people” don’t understand the difference between “outsourcing” and “offshoring.”

That’s a distinction you might make in a Harvard Business School paper, but if Mitt thinks that argument will help him win the election, he’s more trapped in his 1% bubble than I thought.

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?”