Thursday, August 15, 2013

Attention Jeff Bezos: Don't Fire Jennifer Rubin

Former WaPo ombudsman  Patrick B. Pexton is out with some advice for Jeff Bezos: Fire WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin.

Writing in The Washington City Paper, Pexton, who served as ombudsman for WaPo from 2011 until March 2013.  He wrote that Rubin was "the No. 1 source of complaint mail about any single Post staffer" while he served as ombudsman. He said that Bezos should instruct Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor at the Post, to fire 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," Pexton wrote. "Her analysis of the conservative movement, which is a worthwhile and important beat that the Post should treat more seriously on its national pages, is shallow and predictable. Her columns, at best, are political pornography; they get a quick but sure rise out of the right, but you feel bad afterward.
And she is often wrong, and rarely acknowledges it. She was oh-so-wrong about Mitt Romney, week after week writing embarrassing flattery about his 2012 campaign, calling almost every move he made brilliant, and guaranteeing that he would trounce Barack Obama. When he lost, the next day she savaged him and his campaign with treachery, saying he was the worst candidate with the worst staff, ever. She was wrong about the Norway shootings being acts of al-Qaida. She was wrong about Chuck Hagel being an anti-Semite. And does she apologize? Nope.
Rubin was the No. 1 source of complaint mail 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.
First, Rubin is not always wrong, she has been right on in her critiques of Rand Paul, but, more important. it would be great if Bezos expanded the number of columnists, rather than limit them to a particular view. Libertarians should be added to WaPo by the dozens. Here's a list he can choose from. If the libertarians are there, they will have no problem correcting Rubin when she she steps away from reality, as she often does.

Debate is the key, but only if all views are represented in the debate, and right now the libertarian view is being blocked out of the debate in WaPo.

6 comments:

  1. “First, Rubin is not always wrong, she has been right on in her critiques of Rand Paul”.

    Yep, I hope this article validate the long standing suspicion that Robert Wenzel is a secrete neocon agent not a friend of liberty. Ron Paul has already said some people are deliberately creating rift between him and Rand in order to make liberty movement weak. That’s the reason why Rand is Wenzel’s number one enemy (not McCain or anyone else) and attacks him every day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bobby Powell is that you? Have you moved on from attacking Adam Kokesh and now decided to attack Wenzel?

      Delete
    2. Nobody calls McCain a Libertarian or a Libertarian Republican either.
      As long as people think of him this way, the criticism is very much welcome from those of use who don't want to see the "Liberty movement" become the "Neocon Lite movement:.

      Delete
  2. Rand Paul > EPJ & Rubin

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree, like I said before, she's just not a good writer, and her attacks either parrot better thinkers or are way off base and irrelevant. Max Boot is probably the best they have (I don't agree with the neocons obviously), and you may want to check out some of the titles of his latest blog posts to tell you what's going on in neoconservative land. Rubin will hopefully get fired, and deserves to be, she's too hacky.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I would be shocked big time if any real libertarian writers (not just "conservative approved" ones) are added to WaPos staff

    ReplyDelete