4 ms·

Libertarian blogger loses Washington Post job (After Private Comments Are Aired)

2 points by credo 16y ago

abrown28 16y ago
How in the hell is Weigel a Libertarian? What kind of Libertarian would like the Health Care Bill?
- hga 16y ago
  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 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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-from-the-weigel-kerfuffle/ http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/25/the-overlooked-story-f... 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/ 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.

2 points by credo 16y ago

abrown28 16y ago

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

hga 16y ago
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 16y ago

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 16y ago
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-from-the-weigel-kerfuffle/ http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/25/the-overlooked-story-f... 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/ 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.