

Libertarian blogger loses Washington Post job (After Private Comments Are Aired) - credo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/business/media/28post.html

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abrown28
How in the hell is Weigel a Libertarian? What kind of Libertarian would like
the Health Care Bill?

~~~
hga
Well, he _did_ defend Rand Paul after the latter won his nomination and that's
the best guess for the motive behind Weigel defenestration.

He's a liberal with _some_ libertarian preferences, much as I'm a conservative
with some libertarian and paleoconservative preferences.

He also was employed by _Reason_ for a while, although one commentator to a
Weigel thread archly noted that if you're in favor of marijuana
decriminalization anything else goes on that magazine (which is I'm sure an
exaggeration, but I dropped my subscription to it after a year or two in the
late '90s because it was weak tea at best).

------
fondue
He lost his job because the comments lost him all credibility amongst those he
would be covering.

Also, are there any conservatives on Journolist? I thought it was a liberal
echo-chamber?

~~~
hga
Much more than that. It explicitly exists to manage the news, to coordinate
stories and to achieve "epistemic closure" of competing narratives (i.e. to
shut down discussion of the inconvenient, as he tried to do by describing
Congresscritter Bob Etheridge's assault of a "student" on the street
questioner as a "hug" and then shifted the focus to the "Who _Are_ You?"
question).

Discussion of that based on leaked Weigel Journolist emails WRT to two
incidents can be found e.g. here: [http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/25/the-
overlooked-story-f...](http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/25/the-overlooked-
story-from-the-weigel-kerfuffle/)

It also serves as a method to connect young liberals to older ones for jobs,
etc. As the Instapundit reports from a journalist reader of his blog:

" _A friend who was on the List and works at a major newspaper told me
recently, and I quote verbatim: “Journolist was basically a jobs program for
liberals in DC.” This person said that it was used to link up the older, more
established set with the younger up-and-comers, all to better staff
newspapers, magazines, and institutions with liberals. And it is worth adding
that this was said by a very liberal person who was not speaking the least bit
apologetically._ "

(<http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/101932/>)

One can imagine the howls of protest of the existential threat to the Republic
such a list would generate ... if it was populated by conservatives.

