Politico brings us the thrilling news that the Washington Post has become a Major Player in the Liberal Blogosphere, because they hired Ezra Klein, Greg Sargent, and Dave Weigel. (And fired Dan Froomkin's sorry ass, long ago in that dark backward and abysm of time, you know, last summer.)
Apparently though there is considerable fury a-brewing over the Post's sharp tilt Stalinward:
The liberal hires have drawn criticism from two directions.
Conservatives have complained of being covered by people they perceive as liberal. Having Weigel on her beat was “like assigning a weasel to watch the hen house,” Concerned Women for America chief executive Penny Nance told the conservative blogger Matt Lewis Tuesday, after Weigel wrote “I can empathize with everone I cover except for the anti-gay marriage bigots. (He later apologized for using the word “bigot,” but didn’t deny the lack of empathy.)
Gosh. "Conservatives have complained of being covered by people they perceive as liberal." Shocking. That would be, "Conservatives have complained of being covered by people they perceive as liberal, which as a matter of dogma includes The Washington Post." Never mind the reality of the WaPo and its ridiculous op-ed pages. Hire forty Kristols and Krauthammers, and the Concerned Women of America will still call you Kommies.
More to the immediate point, Weigel's apology is incoherent, in that he says he thinks people who don't like gay marriage are motivated by entirely irrational grievances -- but he doesn't think they're bigots!
But of course they are indeed fucking bigots. Weigel just can't say that, even on Twitter, because it's not very nice and hurts the Concerned Women of America's feelings. He also can't say "fucking." Heh. I like my gig better, somehow.
Then again, I'm not a "libertarian," as Weigel describes himself, which means I'm not nearly as confused as someone who used to work at Reason.
This is also good stuff from Politico:
“I’ve never heard him referred to as conservative,” said Ben Domenech, a conservative blogger who was hired in an earlier Post experiment in blogging, then resigned for plagiarism.
"Resigned for plagiarism" is nicely done. Son, you got your plagiarist ass kicked out to the motherfucking curb. "Resigned for plagiarism"... right.
And let's face it, here's what you need to know about the wacky WaPo leftwards lurch: I have nothing against Ezra or Sargent (I forgave Ezra for being a twit about the war a while ago, because I am Bighearted), but they are far, far less to the Left than Krauthammer or Kristol are to the Right.
Also, Froomkin didn't hardly get hired as an affirmative hippie action hire, and he got fired because he didn't seem to have the right ideology, whatever his facts. Klein got hired because he's wonky about an involved issue nobody else at the Hiatt playschool can be bothered to learn about, and also because he's soooo darn cute n' fuzzy you just wanna pick him up & cuddle him nom nom nom boochie-boochie nom. Weigel got hired because the people at the WaPo were confused about his personal ideology and thought he is further right than he is ("Some at the paper took Weigel for a true conservative counter-balance to Klein’s wonky, but fairly reliable, liberalism, two people familiar with his hiring said"). Ben Domenech on the other hand got hired precisely because he's an ignorant far-right loon, and only got fired because he stole shit.
So there you go.
MAS. Useless idiot Dan Riehl informs us that Weigel is an unwitting stooge, a tool for the red agenda of noted pinko Fred Hiatt. Probably!