including a couple of days ago, "I wonder how Froomkin keeps a job a WaPo?" It's a terrible loss.

Bill Maher was on Wolf Blitzer a few days ago and said something rarely mentioned in the media. There are no voices from the left allowed on tv. We got to hear the ravings of extreme righties like Newt and Cheney. They get invited to all the news shows. Yet lefties are never allowed on tv. People like Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinch, true liberals, are held up for laughter and ridicule. They never get invited on MSM shows. No Lefties allowed in the liberal media.

Glenn:

Firing Froomkin was the last straw. I just un-subscribed myself from any and all Washington Post feeds. I cannot get home delivery of the paper--if I could I would have canceled it too.

The Times (NY, that is) may not be far behind.

Randy Fritz

Someone needs to post a Doomsday Clock for the Washington Post like that of the Atomic Scientists. De Long offers textual updates of when the lights will go out, but a more indicator is needed. Froomkin leaving causes the hour hand to advance markedly.

That's just like being a victim of the Holocaust.

It is clear to me that the Washington Post is no longer a paper with journalistic ideals. It is part of the corporate entity The Washington Post Company.

The Washington Post newspaper doesn't really make money for the Post Company. In fact, the biggest moneymaker for the Post Company is Kaplan Learning Services, which makes testing materials and provides test preparation services.

When Katherine Graham ran things, the Post was a real newspaper with journalistic integrity. But she has been dead and gone for 8 years now. Her son Donald runs things now. And he has made it clear that he wants the Post Company to be known as an education services company rather than a news company.

So it's obvious to me that Donald Graham sees his paper not as an independent reporter of news, but as part of a corporate empire. And like any good corporatist, he wants to make the first priority of the paper not journalism, but to support the other corporate entities. An example would to push favorable reporting on No Child Left Behind, which has been very good to companies such as Kaplan Learning Services.

It is Donald that hired the Neocon editor Fred Hiatt to run the Post. Hiatt then reduced the once opinion-diverse Post editorial page into a bland swampland of hacks like Kristol, Krauthammer, Kagan, and Gerson. Previous thoughtful columnists like Broder and Cohen now toe the company line.

It is no accident that once great papers like the Post have declined so far. It cannot be explained only by changing business models---i.e., too much online competition. After all, Dan Froomkin's online column was one of the most popular. Froomkin's firing is, in fact, just another part of the Corporatocracy mentally that has taken root at the Post, and is taking over all aspects of our country.

This is just another depressing episode in the consensus-obsessed, risk-averse ethos of the American Democratic Party which Barack Obama increasingly epitomises.

I read Deborah Howell's piece. What a farce. The American media simply lives in fear of conservatives.

Republicans own the media. Nuff said.

Or I don't see myself visiting their website again.

but this really infuriates me. I already vented my spleen under your previous post, Glenn (and here it is again!),

Son of a Bitch

Froomkin let go! Christ, as if we have so many reputable and ethical reporters that our cup overfloweth. But this, man, this is too much (via Politico):

In so many words, Froomkin was told that his blog had essentially run its course... Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer even took Froomkin to task in one of his columns, calling Froomkin's analysis "stupid."

Stupid says the Sage of Idiocracy. Friend Froomkin, that's nothing less than a badge of honor.

Memo to Salon--hire this man!

but, seriously, this just makes my face flame red. It's bad enough that Froomkin's talent and--need I add?--ethics were so easily dispensed with, but to think that Krauthammer--Krauthammer, for Christ's sake!--retains his position!

I need to go now and take my daily blood pressure medication.

I sure hope Froomkin finds a new gig. His analysis is great. It was essentially required daily reading during the election and as pointed out, he doesn't cut Obama any slack now.

Not to be outdone, will the New York Times "counter" by firing Krugman?

. . you forgot to mention one of WaPo's worst and most devious assholes, the would-be-Rev. Mike Gerson. Otherwise, right on.

I posted this on the previous thread, but thought it would be worth it repost...

To prove that Froomkin was "stupid" on the "ticking time bomb" scenario, Krappy produced this example of a real-world TTB:

On October 9, 1994, Israeli Cpl. Nachshon Waxman was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis captured the driver of the car. He was interrogated with methods so brutal that they violated Israel's existing 1987 interrogation guidelines, which themselves were revoked in 1999 by the Israeli Supreme Court as unconscionably harsh. The Israeli prime minister who ordered this enhanced interrogation (as we now say) explained without apology: "If we'd been so careful to follow the [1987] Landau Commission [guidelines], we would never have found out where Waxman was being held."

Who was that prime minister? Yitzhak Rabin, Nobel Peace laureate. The fact that Waxman died in the rescue raid compounds the tragedy but changes nothing of Rabin's moral calculus.

Firstly, this is the silliest example of the ticking time bomb scenario one could imagine since that scenario is generally given much more traction than it should have BY REPRESENTING THE HUMAN STAKES IN DOZENS, HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUSANDS. Secondly, there's a reason Krauthammer was the only idiot to use this as a successful example of the "ticking time bomb". Such torture techniques only rendered enough data to get the target of the rescue killed. The Israelis did not seem to know, for example, that HAMAS had express instructions to shoot the soldier if there were any rescue attempts.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wosold024804627jul02,0,1051004.story

GAZA CITY - The kidnappers of the young Israeli soldier knew that his comrades would be searching for him, and that the end would come quickly if the Israelis found their safe house.

So the commanders of the four Palestinian militants holding the terrified soldier gave them special instructions, a former Hamas leader recalled Friday, describing the 1994 kidnapping of Cpl. Nachshon Waxman.

"The order was, 'If there's any movement around the house, your first step is to kill the soldier. ... Don't think about your life. Your first step is to kill the soldier,'" said Imad Falouji, who was one of the Hamas leaders negotiating in secret with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. "From then on, one man stood by the soldier 24 hours."

When Israel located Waxman, its commandos stormed the safe house in the West Bank and began blasting the reinforced doors that stood between him and them. By the time they reached the second-floor room where the Israeli-American was tied to a chair, he had a bullet hole in his neck and one in his chest. He was dead.

If there had been numerous hostages, or if indeed, the scenario involved hundreds or thousands as it often is depicted [and this is a completely fair characterization since its advocates tout it as a one-size fits all example], Krauthammer's example today would be viewed as a complete failure of torture! Imagine touting techniques that quite counter-productively actually pulled the trigger that the terrorists had cocked! Stupid wouldn't cover it.

In fact, the only way to succesfully save the life of the soldier, given the fact that HAMAS operatives were instructed to shoot him even though it would cost them their lives, WAS TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE TERRORISTS!

AND THEY FIRED FROOMKIN!