Bloodless Coup

Len Downie on the Froomkin Controversy

A lot of people have noticed the recent "controversy" (incredibly silly whining seems a better description to me) that basically involves complaints by Republicans that Dan Froomkin occasionally says negative things about the White House on his Washington Post weblog. These complainers say the blog should be renamed so that people don't think Froomkin's an actual White House reporter. You know, because people reading the blog are apparently too stupid to figure this out - though I don't recall the Republicans having any similar concerns when it came to the infamous, asymmetrical Florida butterfly ballot.

Today's installment of this controversy has mostly focused on the response of Post editor Len Downie: "We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin's column because it contains opinion," Downie told E&P. "And that readers of the Web site understand that, too."

Now understandably this has taken a lot of criticism as it makes it clear that the Post's top concern in this matter is pleasing the White House (something that will come as no surprise to people who've looked at their editorial page since 2000). But what I think has been undercommented on is that this also makes the White House look truly terrible too, and perhaps even worse than the Post. This is what the White House staff is concerned with? The title of a weblog? And a little bit of negative analysis by one employee of the Washington Post? Their hyper-sensitivity, pettiness and suppression of dissent seems to expand almost exponentially on a monthly basis. And while that's not good (to put it mildly) for the country in general, it's also terrible for the staff in the White House. Having a cloistered, out-of-touch president who can't defend himself is not at all conducive to accomplishing anything that requires significant public support, something needed for a lot of the president's policy aims.