OPINION:
What do you get when you mix an astonishing lack of self-awareness with a liberal dose of self-righteousness? Toxic Never Trump propaganda like the 2023 book “Collision of Power” by Marty Baron, former editor of The Washington Post.
Mr. Baron’s self-righteous claim he and the Amazon Post were not waging war against former President Donald Trump but were simply “at work” smells like the Potomac in August. As Mr. Baron produces the mother of all hit books, he expects us to believe the Post treated Mr. Trump fairly.
Here’s the litmus test: If all you ever read was the Post during Mr. Baron’s tenure, would you know that, among his many achievements, Mr. Trump built a rock-solid economy, cut crime rates, secured our southern border, established American strategic energy dominance, and kept the jackals of Iran, Russia, North Korea and China at bay? Of course not, Marty. That’s on you.
On the lack of self-awareness front, Mr. Baron himself oversaw a dramatic increase in the Post’s muckraking leftists. No one will ever confuse Bob Costa, Bob Woodward, Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker, or many others on Mr. Baron’s hit squad with objective journalists.
These character assassins for hire know Post readers hate Mr. Trump, and they have made a lot of money writing bilious works of anti-Trump fiction. Here, the Post’s modus operandi is not that of transparent journalism. Rather, it is a perennial game of gotcha fueled by anonymous sources with scores to settle and false narratives to spin.
According to Marty Baron’s editorial rules — to be fair, Mr. Woodward was doing it long before Mr. Baron arrived — as long as you have at least two anonymous sources, you are good to go with whatever reality distortion these cowards hiding behind their deep background shields want to spin. And if you can take a scalp like that of good men like Mike Flynn or Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, more power to the Post.
I know this game of gotcha firsthand from my four years in the White House. I bore witness to so-called reporters across the leftist media diaspora — Axios, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, Politico, and of course Mr. Baron’s Post — producing hit piece after hit piece based on misinformation from anonymous sources with an ax to grind.
That’s Marty Baron’s legacy at the Post; here’s more.
Mr. Baron argues that Mr. Trump should have been impeached for his alleged Ukraine quid pro quo. Of course, Mr. Trump would never have had to even raise the issue with Ukrainian officials had the Post’s reporters simply investigated Hunter Biden and Burisma as zealously as they have gone after Mr. Trump.
What about that Hunter Biden laptop story, Marty? The Post interfered with the 2020 election by lying it was Russian disinformation and suppressing the real story.
And that Pulitzer your hit squad got for its Russia hoax — you should have returned that fool’s gold with an apology to Mr. Trump instead of doubling down.
Mr. Baron also whines about Mr. Trump’s costly lawsuits to protect his reputation. Hey, Marty, my legal bill for an illegal prosecution by President Biden’s Department of Justice has already cost more than half a million bucks. I’m still looking for that Post editorial in support of my standing up for the constitutional separation of powers against a partisan witch hunt and against the Biden regime’s weaponization of our justice system.
Comically, Mr. Baron expresses surprise that during his tenure, Post readership skewed more Democratic and left-wing. While Mr. Baron blames Mr. Trump’s “vilification” of the Post for turning conservatives away, what really pisses us off is the anti-Trumpism the Amazon Post throws in our faces every day.
And answer me this, Mr. Baron: Which came first — the leftist press vilification of Mr. Trump, or Mr. Trump’s vilification of the fake news press?
Mr. Baron likewise whimpers about threats his muckrakers receive. Walk a mile in the shoes of any high-profile former Trump administration official after all the negative Post coverage. We face far more dangers out on the mean streets of blue state America than any pampered Postie.
Hovering over Mr. Baron’s memoir is the specter of Post owner Jeff Bezos. While Mr. Baron repeatedly insists the professed liberal Bezos is a man of integrity who has never influenced Post coverage, this sharply contradicts my experience.
As I recount in my bock “In Trump Time,” I met Mr. Bezos at a political dinner where I informed him the White House was running a joint operation with Customs and Border Protection dubbed Operation Mega Flex. We were inspecting thousands of packages from China, most from e-commerce platforms like Amazon. I told Mr. Bezos the hit rates for counterfeit and contraband goods was over 10% — including deadly counterfeits of drugs like Lipitor.
Mr. Bezos’ promise to meet with me personally and later that week quickly devolved into a comic farce. After I tried to arrange the meeting through Jay Carney — an ex-Obama official who had gone through the Washington swamp’s revolving door to a cushy lobbying job at Amazon — Mr. Bezos went on Instagram to deny he ever promised to do so. So much for integrity, Jeff. Amazon remains the biggest dealer of counterfeit Chinese goods on the planet.
Mr. Baron and Mr. Bezos used Mr. Trump just like CNN, MSNBC and The New York Times — to boost viewership, subscriptions and ad revenue. Bashing Donald Trump has been good business, plain and simple. But that is not the business of good journalism.
I used to deliver The Washington Post in high school. Now I wouldn’t even use it as toilet paper.
• Peter Navarro served in the Trump White House as manufacturing czar and chief China hawk. This column originally appeared at http://peternavarro.substack.com.
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