How Much More Pathetic Can the Washington Post Get? Sarah Palin

Just when you think a Washington institution has hit rock bottom, the bottom drops out. No, we're not talking about the woeful Washington Nationals. I wish we were. No, this is about the Washington Post, and it's this morning's sad tale.

Sarah Palin on the op-ed page "writing" about cap-and-trade. Or, as Palin might put it, "cap and..."

With all the talk about how newspapers are dying, can we add one more reason to the list of horribles -- suicide. The "salon" scandal still hasn't died down, not after the paper's ombudsman published his scathing critique calling the intimate dinners at publisher Katharine Weymouth's house an "ethical lapse of monumental proportions." The damage to the credibility of the paper can't be measured. How often does a publisher print a mea culpa as Weymouth did?

How does the Post regain its equilibrium? How does it recover not only from this disaster but also from the dismissal of popular blogger Dan Froomkin, whose sacking led to great protests from the readers the Post execs didn't think existed?

Why, by putting the soon-to-be ex-gov on the op-ed page, one of the prime places of real estate left in the newspaper world? Not to put too fine a point on it -- is there any sane person left over in the Post management?

The op-ed page, despite what conservatives say, is seen by progressives as a neo-con haven, sheltering talents like Jim Hoagland and conservatives like Kathleen Parker. But Palin is another case entirely. It's not simply that no one who saw her last two press conferences about her quitting Alaska for the bright lights of the Lower 48 believes she actually wrote the piece. Ghost-writing is a fine established art. Few politicians do their own writing.

It's quite another to believe that she actually knows or cares sufficiently about cap-and-trade and environmental legislation to care enough to write about it for a major newspaper. And even if she does, what possible justification on Earth is there for the Post publishing her?

The only one I can think of is to "get people talking" about the Post page. To create "buzz." Well, there's good "buzz" and bad "buzz." This is definitely the latter. It's not only that Palin has no constituency to speak of. It's not even that she has been trashed by the right, in addition to criticism by the left. She has no authority to write an article like this and the Post has no business running one.

At the least, and it's a far stretch, a global-warming denier like Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) represents a constituency -- the oil industry and the people of his state. Palin has just abandoned whatever electoral constituency she had, and now the Post is helping to establish herself in this brave new world of hers with conservative celebritydom and punditocracy.

The Lerner family, the owners of the Nationals, finally let their manager go after one too many embarrassments. It's time for the owners of the Post to wake up and to realize that having a joke of an op-ed page is no joke.

Follow Art Brodsky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/artbrodsky

Comments

[judyinAK]

Sarah Palin is a con-artist, plain and simple.

[Archivist1000]

Look at it this way: The functionally illiterate, undereducated and generally uninformed, who didn't have the reading comprehension skills to read or understand OP EDs written by people who can write/think, now can point to this Palin piece and think to themselves: Wow, dat werent so hard to figger out! Mebbe I'z not so stoopid after all! I understood that!

The Washington Post has officially lowered its standards and is going after the DUH! readers, apparently!

[ProperGanda]

Thanks, opinion Czar for deeming her "Opinion unworthy of opinion". This from a website with:
Senator Alec Baldwin
Jim Carey, MD
Rob Thomas, LBGT activist

Sarah Palin is a public figure, who ran for political office last year, and is considered by some to be the front runner for Republican nomination in 2012. That is the reason why there are so many articles on this site slamming her. If she was a nobody, there wouldn't be any reason to talk about her. I don't see any reason why she shouldn't be allowed to state her opinion in a newspaper, other than the fact that you do not agree with her

[writeon1]

Wow! I wonder if the post checked with one of their "focus" groups before giving up prime op-ed space to Palin and her ghostwriter. I know the print newspaper business is in bad shape but... I suppose the Post is grabbing at straws for readers but their standards for readership is sinking into the basement. www.://new­sy1.wordpr­ess.com

[SouthernJewel]

Watch the McCain/Palin campaign trail tapes.
Palin was FOR cap and trade along with McCain.
She speaks with forked tongue.

[mrskorn]

Just like Obama was for transparency. Things change, no?

[jacobnyc]

The Washington Post is nothing but soiled NeoCon toilet paper. It's utter rubbish and I can't wait for it to go bust.

[booksnmoreforyou]

Palin got a ghostwriter.

[ThinkCreeps]

Now she just needs to find a ghostthinker.

[mollyjackson]

Palin should write more. We need to stop calling it cap-and-trade and name it cap-and-cr@p. Like everything else in Obama's agenda this is about economic destruction.

[Estreet1964]

Yeah, because all Obama and the Democrats want to do is destroy the economy.

Do conservatives EVER think things through? (Answer: Of course not, they just regurgitate what Rush tells them.)

Obama is trying to restore the economy that actually WAS destroyed by George Bush and all those patriotic free market people that ran it into the ground with their greed.

[mjtaylor22]

yea.. Obama is trying to destroy the economy worse than Bush.........
yes i can see the conspirarc­y........i­nthe red light of jealousy
such a diabological plan .............
ah aha ahaha ha aha ha

[Archivist1000]

molly: I don't see why you care .... you are hardly one to be 'informed' on anything other than the current FOX talking points ... I bet you've never read a real newspaper in your life, except for the classifieds (maybe) ....

Palin writes like a 12th grade student ... and I would give her a C on that Essay .. no ideas, no supportive arguments. Funny how she had that 'one required quote' that every Jr High student learns about ...

Superfical and amateurish .... only someone who doesn't read would think Palin's story was 'good' .... it was a pathetic piece of writing.

[2008CaliforniaFan]

Wel... $arah Palin sure can raise Money.... FOR THE DEMOCRATS!!

Since Palins Op-Ed piece Move On. org asked for donations to counteract Palins claims.

$100,000 in 24 HOURS. (and still poring in ) What a Gal... Thank You $arah Palin.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/climate-change/moveon-fundraising-email-invoking-sarah-palins-lies-brings-in-100000-in-one-day/

[hun]

The truth is we will not miss the Boston Globe, the NYT, the Seattle PI, the San Fran Chronicle, the Detroit Freepress, the LAT and a few other leftie rags that make better fish wrap and bird cage liner than objective reporting. If they haven't failed they will and good riddance. Save a tree, don't buy leftie rags!!!

[booksnmoreforyou]

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[JailNeoconVicts]

Luckily, Hun never had to face that problem. You can't waste what you never had.

[NoSillyName]

Oh, dear. Hun hates "lefties". Must prefer Fox lies & spin.

[Archivist1000]

You won't miss them, because you never read them ... too 'hard' to comprehend stories of more than 2 paragraphs or 2 ideas.

[RaderBarbarian]

The undeniable truth is that the world is going to exist really quite well without the Washington Post. It simply has no future. If I were an employee, in the news room or in the cafeteria, I would have begun my job search by now. If I were the idiotic publisher, I would think about how nice my life is going to be living in the south of France in retirement. That rag (once such a great newspaper!) is now dead - we merely await the burial of the corpse before the stink overwhelms the entire city.

[ImIn]

I see the irony of the fact that half of the opinion pieces on HuffPo are written by b-list celebrities on every subject ranging from climate to health care with no expertise other then thier own high pinion of themselves has escaped Mr. Brodsky who is himself a qualified opinion writer because he...????? I'm sorry, can anyone describe anything of note Mr Brodsky has done that would render his opinion on anything at all more valid then SP's?

[JerryLevy]

Sarah Palin's opinion is worth being published just as much as Al Gore's. He is an advocate and has invested much money in financial institutions that will make a lot of money if cap and trade is passed. He will become very rich if the bill is signed. He probably believes in the bill but just the same, he has a personal gain if it is passed and he is writing many editorials. Sarah Palin comes from an energy state and she has many valid opinions that should be published. Maybe this author just thinks the post should publish opinion pieces he agrees with.

[theyedster]

Um, sure. Or maybe Palin and her handlers would like to rehabilitate her image (like she had a credible one to begin with) and the Post was more than willing to help.

[NoSillyName]

Maybe, problem is, Palin doesn't know how to string together the words to form a cohesive sentence or thought. And she doesn't even read, or at least she wasn't able to name one publication that she knows of, paged through, or bothered to read.

[Pavelefty]

Your points are exactly correct, JerryLevy. Even if we disagree with her point of view, to say that a newspaper shouldn't run her opinions is just silly. Energy is her turf. (Your comments on Al Gore are also correct - the man will make a(nother) fortune from cap-and-trade - but somewhat beside the point.)

The reaction of the left to this woman continues to come across as panicked fear. She snaps her fingers, and lefty heads explode. It's sort of entertaining.

[ChefLito]

I just deleted my subscription to WAPO

[petera63]

Wow, you had a subscription? Wow!

[Whatevah]

This is a stupid post. Newspapers are supposed to publish a wide range of opinions. To disagree is to favor totalitarianism.

Publishing Palin is the best possible way to discredit her. Why does this poster have so much trouble with such a simple idea?

[RaderBarbarian]

Perhaps it is because editorial pages are supposed to present enlightened opinion? Could that be it? And could any opinion bursting forth from the Alaskan Queen be enlightened? Of course not. Ipso facto, why is the Washington Post trying to sell papers by pandering to a "caudillo"? (Look it up.)

[Pavelefty]

I looked up caudillo. It's a good word.

It would probably be useful for you to look up ipso facto.