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The Capitulation of The Washington Post
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/capitulation-washington-post-213393Seldom do editorials make the news. However, The Washington Post, following in the footsteps of The Los Angeles Times, has managed to accomplish that feat by not printing one. William Lewis, the paper’s publisher and chief executive officer, declared on Friday that “we are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” So much for democracy dying in darkness and all that. Lewis, an editorial import from Great Britain, created an instantaneous uproar with his decision.
Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the paper, deemed it “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.” He went on to call the paper’s stand if that’s what it is, “disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for its courage.” By that, he was, of course, referring to the paper’s determination to uncover the Watergate scandal in the face of multifarious threats from the Nixon administration. Robert Kagan, a prominent columnist for the paper, has resigned from it in protest.
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The fact that the owners of the Post and The Los Angeles Times, Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, respectively, are billionaires has not escaped the attention of their critics, who see democracy as dying in the C-suite. Couple it with the news that Elon Musk, a staunch backer of Donald Trump’s third bid for the presidency, has been having secret conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and you have the basis for a perfect storm of suspicion about oligarchs tending not to the public weal but to their own private pecuniary interests.
The Wall Street Journal, no critic of American capitalism, proffers the judgment that the “regular contacts between world’s richest man and America’s chief antagonist raise security concerns, topics include geopolitics, business and personal matters.” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson declared that an investigation into Musk’s dealings is imperative as SpaceX has access to top-secret information. “I don’t know that that story is true,” he said. “I think it should be investigated. If that story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”
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