There’s a passage in the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous that talks about people who fail getting sober. It says: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.”
That’s a good jumping-off spot for a discussion about the failing Washington Post. The Post, which loses $100 million a year, is planning to dramatically cut the size of its staff, with the biggest cuts hitting its foreign desk and sports department. Journalists are all over social media sucking their thumbs about what a tragedy it all is.
Like the drunk who just doesn’t get it, The Washington Post, addicted to decapitating conservatives, will never realize the problem. I could provide a lecture about the basic facts—the Post is far-left, and its coverage is abysmal—but it might be more constructive to drill down into something very specific. It’s like I’m addressing a drunk and trying to make him face his problem. I’m not talking about his general outlook on life, but a specific example of why he fails.
This fall I am hosting an Anti-Communism Film Festival. I’ve written about the festival since the idea came to me last summer. It’ll take place in Washington, D.C. We’ve recently been joined by two sponsors, the Victims of Communism Foundation and the Center for Renewing America. It’s a story. Moreover, it’s a local story. The "Democracy Dies in Darkness" Post is AWOL. They always are when someone has information that challenges their narrative. A drunk on a bender, they can’t change. As AA says, “They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.”
The Washington Post ignores and slanders conservatives. It has cost them everything, but they just can’t drop the pipe. In The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians, Post veteran reporter Carlos Lozada offers a book that is about other books—Lozada reads all the books and other documents about Washington. These are political memoirs, government documents, Supreme Court decisions: “I read histories and manifestos,” Lozada writes. “I peruse centuries-old essays and decades-old commission reports. I scour Supreme Court decisions and the text of the latest congressional investigations. I read many books about American politics, and, I must confess, I also read books by politicians and government officials.” Lozada reads campaign biographies, “revisionist memoirs,” the “tell-all books by mid-level administration staffers,” and books by “presidents, vice presidents, senators, chiefs of staff and FBI directors.”
If it has anything to do with D.C., Lozada reads it. There’s one book Lozada won’t read—my own. In 2022 I published The Devil’s Triangle, a book about The Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing. The book’s set in D.C. and was written by me, a native of the city and a high school friend of Kavanaugh’s. The New York Times wouldn’t touch The Devil’s Triangle, leaving book reviewer Alexandra Jacobs to write, while reviewing another book that unfavorably talks about me, that she “longs for more about Mark Judge.” That’s easy to rectify. Maybe we can smuggle a copy of The Devil’s Triangle to Alexandra behind the Iron Curtain of the Times.
I was at the center of a SCOTUS battle, my grandfather was a baseball player for the Washington Senators, my father worked for National Geographic, whose offices are in D.C., and my brother won the Helen Hayes Award for the best actor in D.C. Yet the Post will not review The Devil’s Triangle.
Years ago the Post had an advertising slogan: “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.” The meaning was that people who read the Post get what’s currently hot and happening in the city. Now the slogan should be: “If you don’t get it, you get it.” You’re better informed by not reading the failing paper than by reading it.
In 2012, my friend Dawn Eden Goldstein published a book: My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds With the Help of the Saints. Dawn’s fascinating person. A rock journalist who wrote the liner notes for more than 70 albums, she converted to Catholicism and became an author and media presence. When My Peace I Give You was published, Dawn had a book launch at the Catholic Information Center in D.C. The CIC is one block from the Post. The paper didn’t cover the event. (I don’t know Dawn’s politics; my views here are my own, hers may be completely different.)
In 2024, Dawn published Father Ed: The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor. The book, about a priest who was central to the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous, was inspired by an article I wrote about Fr. Ed, “Twelve Steps to Man.” Fr. Ed also is the source of one of my favorite quotes: "I have a feeling that if I ever find myself in Heaven, it will be from backing away from Hell.”
The Post never backed away. The addiction to punitive liberalism was too strong. Now it’s too late.