The Washington Post’s continued labeling of blogger Jennifer Rubin as a “conservative” in the years since she has repeatedly rejected conservative ideas and principles is an example of why the American people are unable to trust the media, more than three dozen top conservative leaders say.
“In truth, it is nearly impossible to discern any conservatism in Rubin’s contemporary writing,” the leaders said in an October 3 letter to the Washington Post editorial board. Citing the rejection of her previous positions on climate change, gun control, Middle East foreign policy, tax cuts, immigration, and abortion, the group said the notion that Rubin is conservative is “laughable.”
More recently she has mocked virginity as “juvenile, emotionally stunted” behavior, argued in favor of impeaching Judge Brett Kavanaugh, mocked those who defend due process and the rule of law, campaigned for Democrats and against Republicans, and generally engaged in obsessive behavior against conservatives on social media.
“We, of course, respect the right of The Washington Post to employ whatever writers it pleases — even Jennifer Rubin. However, we ask for the sake of intellectual honesty that the Post cease to identify her as in any way ‘conservative,'” the group implored the Post. They also asked that the paper, which employs almost no columnists that represent the views of the vast majority of Republicans, consider dealing with that major problem more than two years after Donald Trump’s election as president shocked the media class.
“[W]e also respectfully request that you consider hiring a voice who can eloquently and effectively defend the positions held by our President, his party, and the millions of voters who elected him. We would be happy to provide recommendations.”
Among the three dozen signers are the American Principles Project’s Francis P. Cannon and Terry Schilling, Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, Conservative Partnership Institute’s Jim DeMint, Media Research Center’s L. Brent Bozell, and Foley and Lardner partner Cleta Mitchell.
They are only the most recent group to express concern about Rubin being identified by the Post as a conservative. National Review’s Charles Cooke wrote the definitive analysis of Rubin’s changing of positions simply because of her opposition to Trump:
If Trump is indeed a tyrant, he is a tyrant of the mind. And how potent is the control he exerts over Rubin’s. So sharp and so sudden are her reversals as to make effective parody impossible. When President Obama agreed to the Paris Climate Accord, Rubin left her readers under no illusions as to the scale of her disapproval. The deal, she proposed, was ‘ephemeral,’ ‘a piece of paper,’ ‘a group wish,’ a ‘nonsense’ that would achieve ‘nothing.’ That the U.S. had been made a party to a covenant so ‘devoid of substance,’ she added, illustrated the ‘fantasy world’ in which the Obama administration lived, and was reflective of Obama’s preference for ‘phony accomplishments,’ his tendency to distract, and his base’s craven willingness to eat up any ‘bill of goods’ they were served. At least it did until President Trump took America out of it, at which point adhering to the position she had theretofore held became a ‘senseless act,’ a ‘political act,’ ‘a dog whistle to the far right,’ and ‘a snub to ‘elites’’ that had been calibrated to please the ‘climate-change denial, right-wing base that revels in scientific illiteracy’ (a base that presumably enjoyed Rubin’s blog until January 20th, 2017). To abandon the ‘ephemeral’ ‘piece of paper,’ Rubin submitted, would ‘materially damage our credibility and our persuasiveness’ and represent conduct unbecoming of ‘the leader of the free world.’ One is left wondering how, exactly, any president is supposed to please her.
The Post has thus far declined repeated calls to rectify its deficit of actual conservative writers or deal with its false labeling of Rubin.
