Top New Yorker Writer: Washington Post Editorial Page Is "Pathetic" And "Pitiful"
October 8, 2007 -- 1:20 PM EST // //

Radar Online has just posted a fantastic new interview with New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg, whose voice is the gold standard for political writing. And I'm not saying this because Hertzberg said some very kind things about TPM.

Hertzberg makes some key observations about the state of insider D.C. opinion-making today -- one of the more trenchant ones being that The Washington Post's editorial page serves its readers a pile of steaming horse-crap on a daily basis. Hertzberg tells his interviewer that he gets much of his political news from blogs, prompting the following exchange:

That's a sea change, isn't it?

Yeah. But when I don't have access to the Times on paper I always go to the Times website. I wouldn't miss Krugman for the world. And I wouldn't miss Frank Rich. Or E.J. Dionne and Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post. The Post's op-ed page has a few pearls amidst the shit.

Certainly the New York Times editorial page has done a lot better on the main issues of the day for the past five years.

There's just absolutely no comparison. The Post's editorial page has been pathetic. Really pathetic. There are still a few twitches left in it—every once in a while it takes on some egregious violation of civil liberties—but for the most part it's just pitiful.

"Pitiful." "Pathetic." "Shit." One surmises that Hertzberg doesn't think much of Fred Hiatt's work.

This argument, obviously, will come as no surprise to the readers of liberal blogs, who fire spitballs daily at the ramparts surrounding Hiatt's palace. But it's gratifying indeed to see it given voice by someone with Hertzberg's journalistic authority -- someone, that is, who has the power to influence the thinking of Hiatt's social peers and hence whose opinion matters.

What makes this really important, though, is what Hertzberg says later in the interview, about the larger context operating here:

You've spent roughly half your career in Washington and half in New York. Do D.C. journalists have an inside-the-Beltway problem?

Of course there's an inside-the-Beltway problem. There's also an outside-the-Beltway problem.

Which one is worse?

The one that one happens to be discussing at the moment. The inside-the-Beltway problem is a type of tunnel vision and a sense of narrow possibilities. It's also a fear of not being Serious with a capital S.

I would say Serious/Masculine.

Yes, right. In other words, it's much harder to damage your career by consistently supporting war and cruelty than by consistently supporting peace and love. The default position is "bombs away." The problem with the outside-the-Beltway mentality is an ignorance of what the actual human pressures and incentives are inside the Beltway, why politicians and pundits behave the way they do, and why that is not necessarily entirely attributable to their moral depravity.

It's nice to see an established journalist employ the "Serious" meme without mocking it -- and it's even nicer to see one tell the simple, unvarnished truth about the career advantages that attend "consistently supporting war and cruelty," as Hertzberg so aptly puts it.

He doesn't say so, but Hertzberg's clearly talking again about Hiatt and his ilk, and I think it's worth adding that there's actually a connection between the different phenomena he's observing here. Being wrong about war, with hugely catastrophic consequences, is not damaging to one's career precisely because Hiatt and his fellow D.C. townies have succeeded in defining Seriousness as little more than an instinct towards dropping bombs, whatever the consequences, rather than an instinct away from it.

It's also worth noting that what Hertzberg defines here as an "outside the Beltway" problem -- the inability to view politicians as, you know, human beings -- is actually an inside-Beltway-journalism problem, too. One thing that constantly mars political coverage is this bizarre idea -- most frequently applied to Dems -- that politicians only have one motive for doing things. If a politician does something that carries perceived political benefits, he or she can't possibly also be doing it because he or she thinks it's a good idea, too.

One final point. The next time Hertzberg spies something "pathetic" or "pitiful" on WaPo's editorial page, it would be awesome to hear him say so, just as forcefully, on his blog over at The New Yorker. Perhaps he's done this in the past and I've missed it, but really, you can never have enough of this -- particularly from someone like Hertzberg, whose opinion, again, will actually matter to Hiatt and the other townies.

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