Thanks for writing. As you may know, as ombudsman I operate independently from The Post's newsroom and management. But I regularly inform them of what I'm hearing from readers. Currently, I'm receiving a large number of e-mails from readers like you who are unhappy with Mr. Froomkin's departure. I appreciate your comment and will share your views.

Best wishes,

Andy Alexander

Washington Post Ombudsman

A bit bland, but it could have been worse. Like the response I got from the New York Times in 2001: I wrote and asked their ombudsman why, after eight years of investigating President Clinton for what was ultimately bogus Whitewater corruption charges, they were not investigating Vice President Cheney as intensely for his involvement in Halliburton's $100 million Enron-style writedowns?

I have the email somewhere, but this is the gist of it, swear to God:

We'll investigate Vice President Cheney when the Democrats start hollering about it, and not before.

Some wankering, eh? Swear to God.

It's sad this once credible and reputible paper dumped Froomkin. Just yesterday, they gave space for a lengthy op-ed column to Paul Wolfowitz, who like Charles Krauthammer, are ratchetting up the rhetoric advocating our getting involved in the recent Iranian election debacle, following one a day earlier by Hagen.

All three advocated us getting into Iraq, and with their "talking points," fear-mongering, and demonizing anyone who didn't follow their "logic," got us into a mess where trillions have been spent, over 4,000 American hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died, over 30,000 Americans have permanent illnesses-disabilities, along with untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and more than 2 million Iraqis are still displaced.

Publishing foreign policy advice from Wolfowitz is as credible as listening to Josef Mengele talking about medical ethics, and as welcome as investment advice coming from Bernie Madoff.

The Washington Post will become another Fox News outlet soon, and will lose readers by the droves. What ever happened to independent, unbiased, fact-based evidence in journalism?