I’ve never read Stephen King’s books. While he’s obviously a talented writer, to judge from the enormous sales he’s earned, it’s not that I am somehow boycotting his books due to his well-known liberal opinions, but simply that his particular niche, horror novels, just doesn’t appeal to me.
So, what has led to Mr King’s fit of pique?
The Washington Post says it will not endorse a candidate for president
Publisher William Lewis explained the decision as a return to the newspaper’s roots.
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Laura Wagner | Friday, October 25, 2024 | 1:09 PM EDT | Updated: 8:17 PM EDT
The Washington Post’s publisher said Friday that the paper will not make an endorsement in this year’s presidential contest, for the first time in 36 years, or in future presidential races.
The decision, announced 11 days before an election that most polls show as too close to call, drew immediate and heated condemnation from a wide swath of subscribers, political figures and media commentators. Robert Kagan, a longtime Post columnist and editor-at-large in the opinion department, resigned in protest, and a group of 11 Washington Post columnists co-signed an article condemning the decision. Angry readers and sources flooded the email inboxes of numerous staffers with complaints.
In a column published on The Post’s website Friday, publisher and CEO William Lewis described the decision as a return to the newspaper’s roots of non-endorsement. The Post did not begin regularly endorsing presidential candidates until 1976, when the paper endorsed Jimmy Carter “for understandable reasons at the time,” Lewis wrote.
“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable,” Lewis wrote. “We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”
There’s more at the original.
Naturally, the left waxed wroth, as the newspaper’s Editorial Board already had a draft endorsement of Kamala Harris Emhoff in hand, and the order came down from on high: owner Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com, ordered the change. Only two days earlier, Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, blocked a planned endorsement of Mrs Emhoff, which led to the resignation of editorials editor Mariel Garza, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene. The Post’s editor-at-large Robert Kagan quit, and other resignations are expected. The Spectator mused:
Of most interest to Cockburn, however, were the remarks of fellow columnist and MSNBC mainstay Jennifer Rubin to the LA Times resignations earlier in the week. In response to Sewell Chan’s resignation from the Times, she wrote, “Bravo. All respect.” Followed by, “and where are the rest of them?”
LOL! Mrs Rubin has now put herself in the position of either having to resign, or proving herself what we already knew she is, a total hypocrite. From Wikipedia:
Rubin has been one of the most vocal conservative writers to criticize Donald Trump, as well as the overall behavior of the Republican Party during Trump’s term in office. Rubin denounced Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement as “a dog whistle to the far right”, and designed to please his “climate change denial, right-wing base that revels in scientific illiteracy.” Previously, after Barack Obama had approved the agreement, Rubin characterized it as “nonsense” and argued that it would not achieve anything. Rubin described Trump’s 2017 decision to not implement parts of the Iran nuclear deal as the “emotional temper tantrum of an unhinged president.” She had previously said that “if you examine the Iran deal in any detail, you will be horrified as to what is in there.” Rubin strongly supported the United States officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Early in his presidency, she criticized Trump for not doing so, saying that it was indicative of his tendency to “never keep his word.” She concluded that Trump “looks buffoonish in his hasty retreat”. In December 2017, after Trump announced that he would move the embassy, she said it was “a foreign policy move without purpose.”
Fourteen opinion columnists of the Post wrote that the decision not to make an endorsement — meaning: an endorsement of Mrs Emhoff — “is a terrible mistake,” but that, to me, brought a smile to my face. In all of this, I mused that perhaps Dr Soon-Shiong and Mr Bezos had devised a nefarious plot to reduce expenses at their newspapers, as some veteran columnists have, and might still, leave their jobs, without the owners having to fire them.
Does the Post really need fourteen opinion columnists?
One person familiar with the figures told Semafor that the decision already seemed to be impacting subscriptions. In the 24 hours ending Friday afternoon, about 2,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions, an unusually high number, an employee said.
So, Stephen King and “Meathead” Rob Reiner and a bunch of other people have cancelled their subscriptions. Yet, had conservatives announced a bunch of subscription cancellations following the newspaper’s endorsements of Democrats — every presidential endorsement the Post has made has been for the Democratic candidate — the left would have called it childish petulance. The Philadelphia Inquirer just endorsed Mrs Emhoff, but I’m not going to cancel my subscription over that. It was something that everyone who reads the Inky expected.