Retiring WashPost Editor Throws a Fit About How Conservatives Ruined Washington

Newsbusters.org ^ | March 2, 2014 | Tim Graham

[Kaslin]

Former Washington Post managing editor Robert Kaiser is retiring at age 70, and he’s very cranky about how conservatives have destroyed government and Washington collegiality. This tells you a lot about what kind of liberal edits and massages the Post every day.

Kaiser is moving to New York, and on the front of the Sunday Outlook he described how “Republicans lost their minds” and “Democrats lost their souls.” In essence, both sides are now too conservative for Bob, starting with a debt-limit vote:

On Oct. 16, 162 members of Congress, 144 in the House and 18 in the Senate, voted “no,” votes meant explicitly to drive their government into bankruptcy, when there was a real chance that their view might prevail. Here was an entirely new style of public service, and it turned my stomach.

Those 162 votes reflected the deep hostility felt by the newest version of Republican lawmakers toward the government of their country. It is a cynical and often uninformed hostility, befitting the age we live in. And it has many adherents in a country with an elaborate regulatory and welfare state that many like to pretend we don’t really have, don’t really need and don’t really like — three blatant falsehoods.

Lies and intellectual inventions are now typical of our public life, which made Washington difficult for me. Of course, a politician lying is hardly a shock, but there is a difference between telling untruths (see Nixon, Richard M.) and making stuff up. I liked Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s dictum: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

To Kaiser, a gargantuan federal government is so positive that public love for it is a “fact.” Few conservatives deny we have an “elaborate regulatory and welfare state,” so who is inventing reality in this assessment? Notice that Kaiser was managing editor mostly in the Clinton years, and yet he still defies lying as Nixonian, not Clintonian.

The Clintons were not blamed for lying, corruption, and taking a rhetorical blowtorch to their enemies. The Clintons didn’t show a disregard for facts, as in “We’ll lie relentlessly until the Monica dress DNA sample comes in.” No, collegiality was destroyed unilaterally by GOP leaders like Newt Gingrich:

[Kaslin]

More in the link

[Olog-hai]

Both Republicans and Democrats are too conservative for this guy? How far to the left of Stalin is he?

[Navy Patriot]

Couldn’t happen to a nicer city.

[RoosterRedux]

Go Newt!

[yldstrk]

destroyer

[andyk]

The base consists principally of white evangelical Christians...Their America would not have elected a black president.

I bet many of them voted for Alan Keyes right along with me, Mr. Kaiser.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

This pinhead needs to live in Hays, Kansas for a few years to discover the real America.

[RoosterRedux]

BTW, read Newt's reading list. I just finished "Troublesome Young Men" about the young politicians that fought the British/Chamberlain establishment to get Winnie elected.

They saved Western Civilization in doing so.

If we don't take the necessary steps here in the US, we will watch as Western Civilization dies here on our shores.

[andyk]

How far to the left of Stalin is he?

Well he did admit to being a foreign correspondent in Moscow, comrade.

[G Larry]

Hey Bob!

Aren’t you taking this “Kaiser” thing a bit far?

[okie01]

Having read what Mr. Kaiser had to say, it is quite clear where his allegiance lies.

He is four-square for liberalism, big government and the Democrat party.

America and Americans don't figure in his value system. Nor does, quite obviously, objective reporting.

[cripplecreek]

I’ve long said that all media types should be required to live in some little flyover town somewhere for a while to get a different perspective.

[Army Air Corps]

Okay, that did make me laugh.

Perhaps he thinks the world went to hell when that “revisionist” Khrushchev came to power. /s

[Nuc 1.1]

This explains much about the Washington Post. This b@stard cannot believe how angry freedom loving folks are at our government. Further he lies on the the face of his statements, for instance if the debt ceiling had never been raised the government would not have gone bankrupt...unless the Obama administration would not pay the bills. So the man is either ignorant or a liar. In either case he shouldn’t be an editor for a major news paper.

[Billthedrill]

...an elaborate regulatory and welfare state that many like to pretend we don’t really have, don’t really need and don’t really like...

That's the problem in a nutshell. It isn't a pretense. We have the monster eating us alive, yes, but we do not need it and we most sincerely do not like it. Kaiser does, however - it has given him a luxurious lifestyle and a generous share of power. For him, what's not to like?

This man is what has happened to our country. In a better age he'd be looking forward to a tumbrel ride to a waiting guillotine.

[Lisbon1940]

Maybe more would have if he’d kept his pants zipped.

[blueunicorn6]

Old Bob’s Dad was a lifelong Democrat appointee.

[Nuc 1.1]

Me too. One of the top two percent in the nation that had the honor to vote for Dr. Keys.

[MinuteGal]

Take another look at his photo at top.

Aging metrosexual pansyman.

Leni

[JSDude1]

He ain’t seen nothing yet, the ole kermudgen.