Billionaire Jeff Bezos may be injecting tons of cash into The Washington Post, opening up new bureaus in Rome, Hong Kong, Paris, Istanbul and Brussels. But it doesn’t mean the stories won’t sometimes be completely idiotic.
WSJ Editorial Features Editor James Taranto sliced up a piece by not one but TWO reporters who claim that female candidates confront rougher treatment about their personalities than their male counterparts. The news peg is that recent vicious piece in Politico that called Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) “aloof, cold, too divisive and too liberal.”
Lots of journalists have been shitting bricks over it, including The Young Turks, Roland Martin and CNN’s unbearable Joan Walsh. “How dare you @politico?” Walsh wailed.
WaPo‘s crack team of Annie Linskey and Dave Weigel wrote a story on gendered criticisms that possible 2020 White House candidates like Warren have to face. But don’t worry. WaPo has a superb reputation. (RELATED: WaPo Ran Kavanaugh Story With Knowingly False Info)
“Let’s put this to the test, shall we?” Taranto begins menacingly.
He highlighted their nut graph:
“It was the question often asked of female candidates and rarely of men: Is she ‘likable’ enough to be president? Others put it another, potentially more devastating, way: Is she too much like Hillary Clinton to be the nominee?”
Then Taranto did a simple Google search, which spat out several examples of WaPo announcing that various male candidates and pols have “likability” issues, just like Hillary Clinton when she ran against Barack Obama in 2008.
A 2016 headline: “Hillary Clinton has a likability problem. Trump has a likability epidemic.”
Another: “The likability problem of Ted Cruz.”
And another by WaPo‘s own Jennifer Rubin: “Rubio critics say he’s too likable for his own good.”
WaPo‘s “likability” stories date back to 2004 and ex-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who had an extramarital affair and a child while his wife was dying of cancer. A WaPo headline reads: “Being likable wasn’t enough.”
Taranto’s takedown was relentless.
“Here’s one from 1988 for crying out loud,” he wrote. “FOR DUKAKIS, A CHALLENGE TO BE LIKABLE.”
He mocks the reporting pair for quoting former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell for making sexist comments about possible 2020 White House contender Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota. He called her “tough” and the “girl next door” that “every father would want their son to meet and maybe marry.”
“This goes unremarked IN AN ARTICLE COMPLAINING ABOUT ‘GENDERED’ COMMENTS ON FEMALE CANDIDATES!” Taranto wrote angrily.
He added, “So yeah, great job Washington Post … End of rant.”