Donald Graham is chairman of The Washington Post Co.
Donald Graham is a Republican.
This is apparently a big secret to a lot of people. It is a big secret to liberal bloggers like Glenn Greenwald, who constantly whine about individual Post stories or editorials. It is certainly a secret to the right, which treats the Washington Post as though it is the epitome of liberalism.
But this is not true. Donald Graham’s mother, the late Katherine Graham, may have been a liberal. But his father Philip Graham, who committed suicide when he was just a kid, was not a liberal, and it is pure pretense on the part of Washington Post people and historians of the paper, enamored as they are of the glories that were Woodward and Bernstein (note — Woodward is also a Republican) that the lie of the Post’s liberalism continues to flourish.
And it is a lie.
In fact, the Post never was liberal per-se. For a long time it tried
hard to practice fair, non-partisan corporate journalism. But that is
not liberalism.
Now that conservatism has come to mean a journalism that twists facts,
even lies to maintain the power of the Right, Donald Graham — like a
good Republican — is going right along. Those at the Post who toe the
line are promoted. Those who do not are ignored.
The lie of the Post being liberal is a great convenience to
Republicans, and Graham goes along with that, too, again because he is
a good soldier. But it is just that, a convenience.
Corporations generally lack politics, and those which have politics
either practice a politics of their own self-interest, or a far-right
politics of oppressing all those who might question corporatism.
Get over it.
Oh, and for those who are depressed about this? This was the case in 1930 as well. And what came two years later? Right.
Absolute concentrations of power always lead to revolt when conditions deteriorate. Always. Ask Silvio Berlusconi.
