What can you expect from the Washington Post?

Here in Washington, their disgraceful reporting and surreptitious shift to the right is OLD news.

Used to be we had the centrist-to-liberal Washington Post, versus the conservative, Moonie, wingnut Washington Times.

Now, we just have a joke:

"What's the difference between the Washington Post and the Washington Times?... One of them actually ADMITS it's a conservative newspaper."

The Washington Post has unabashedly supported the war, made excuse after excuse for the Bush Administration's criminal actions, and continued to employ Senior Bush Bootlicker and Administration Toady, the fallen-from-grace Bob Woodward.

There is very little actual "reporting" going on at the Washington Post anymore...most of it is rehashing of administration press releases. And let's not even talk about the embarrassment of the Style Section, where the "Reliable Source" gossip column has become even more vapid than it ever was, and in whose pages breathless fashionista Robin Givhan manages to eke out a living writing about "Laura Bush's business suits" and "Condoleezza Rice's boots" in articles that plumb the total depths of Washington's shallow mindlessness.

The Washington Post has fallen sway to what everyone else in Washington is suffering from: a combination of intense fear of telling the truth (I don't think the investigative reporters covering the White House, State Dept, Defense Dept. and Middle East fancy publishing a Washington Post: Guantanamo Edition) and fawning self-important crushes on anyone of importance who will tell them anything "off the record" (see every episode of "West Wing.")

There was a time in years past when we all actually read the Post. Now, no one takes the Washington Post seriously anymore. (I actually end up getting most of my political news from Salon and NPR.)

The Washington Post Ombudsman's total descent into disgrace just means she's not above it all and independent as she's supposed to be, as as most reporters are supposed to be...

Instead, she's wallowing in the mud with the rest of her Washington Post colleagues...

And she knew she'd get GREAT ratings, and LOTS of follow-on publicity (she' son the front page of today's Washington Post, for goodness sake) -- AND she gets to salve her wounded pride and conscience to boot.

She'd have been an idiot NOT to do the show!

And as for Frey, one could wonder why he would do the show. I mean, after you publicly embarrass the most egotistical and powerful woman in media in the world, you think she's going to soft peddle and be all mushy with you for an hour? Of course not. He didn't have to do it.

But he's a businessman too. He wrote a novel that wouldn't sell, so he recast it as a memoir, and promoted it relentlessly, and it sold well.

He knows the value of publicity.

After all, look at Amazon.com this morning. Frey's book is #4...