Dave Weigel Takes MSNBC Job Like A Common Liberal



Reporter/blogger Dave Weigel has resigned from the Washington Post following the leak of controversial, off-the-record emails he sent to a group of journalists.
Weigel, who covered the conservative beat for the Washington Post, said in an e-mail to the liberal JournoList group that "this would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire."
Weigel apologized to his readers (and to Drudge), but now FishbowlDC has confirmed that Weigel resigned from the newspaper Friday morning.


 

When he arrived at a party on the Huffington Post's D.C. office roof-deck on Thursday evening, Washington Post reporter/blogger David Weigel felt secure in his job. Earlier in the day, the media-focused site FishbowlDC had published a series of off-the-record emails written by Weigel in which he had disparaged members of the conservative movement that he covers.
But after checking with the powers that be at the Washington Post, it was relayed to him that they found the material not consequential enough to be a firing offense. Weigel, a well-regarded chronicler of all things Tea Party, had been an immediate success at the paper, and his offer of resignation was seen as highly gratuitous.
By Friday morning, however, things had changed. Weigel made a call to the Huffington Post at roughly 10:15 a.m. to privately relay that he was, in fact, leaving the Post. A new set of off-record Weigel emails had been disclosed to The Daily Caller disclosing even more snide quips about major conservative players (as well as comments expressing hope that health care reform would pass Congress).
The conservative-leaning website was ostensibly making the argument that Weigel was no longer objective enough to cover his beat. The Post editors agreed. The resignation he offered the night before was now viewed as the best path forward. And by noon the final deal had been struck to end Weigel's three-month run at the paper.
The entirety of the episode (and it took less than a day to conclude) was greeted with shock within the close-knit community of Washington political reporters. Weigel's libertarian leanings have long allowed him to cover the far right from a sympathetic and nuanced perspective, unique among mainstream reporters. Even when using the term "Paultards" to describe Ron Paul followers, he was doing it while noting the unfairness that Paul wasn't included in a Fox News debate even as the network relentlessly covers Tea Party protests, which are populated to a large degree by Paul followers. Even some of those he had insulted in the disclosed emails contacted him on Friday morning with "don't worry" notes.
But within the Washington Post, Weigel's politics (he is a libertarian with clear progressive leanings) appeared to surprise management, some of whom assumed he was a conservative. The ethos (or perhaps perception) of impartiality is still closely held in the Post newsroom. And with a recent slew of opinion/reporter hires (Ezra Klein, Greg Sargent, and Weigel), some of the old guard felt uncomfortable.
So Weigel was let go. Hours after it happened, he walked over to the Huffington Post's office to commiserate. He refused to talk about what happened on the record. But he did make it quite clear that he had no animus towards his now-former bosses at the Post. They had wanted to keep him there, he said. They understood the traffic and popularity he had brought to the site. But the situation had apparently become untenable.
The immediate reaction towards the Post was swiftly negative. Undoubtedly, there were other reporters in the newsroom there that felt the exact same way as Weigel. Their fortune had been simply not putting their thoughts in an email chain, or, simply, not having their personal emails leaked. For political observers, it was a somewhat depressing reflection of the limits of the new media universe -- where the traditional powers have not quite yet reached a level of comfort with journalists who are transparent with their biases but, nevertheless, fair and accurate in their reporting.
 

 A Children’s Treasury of Breitbart Commenters Reacting To Dave Weigel’s Memoir Thing

This morning Grandpa Dave Weigel sat the Internet on his lap to tell it the story of the time he was a political reporter, his first non-tweeted public statement since being forced to resign from the Washington Post on Friday for having a sense of humor. To let wingnuts know he doesn’t really, in his heart, want to set them all on fire, Weigel chose to explain himself on one of Andrew Breitbart’s wingnut websites. Q: Did the flock re-embrace Weigel with open arms? A: There is a comments section.

ARDavis71 leads us off with a story of his own:

I had a chance meeting with David (his card said Washington Independent) when he was covering the National Tea Party convention in Nashville. As I sat at a back table at one of the presentations he sat down next to me and started asking me the “normal” questions like where I was from and why I was there. He seemed to be jotting down notes.

After I explained how I got started being concerned about politics, he quickly got up and explained he had some other things to report on. He appeared nervous to be talking to someone with a real (and untold) story.

Haha, Dave Weigel hates reporting! Thankfully he got resigned.

DavidMontgomery, who, yes, is angrily holding an assault rifle in his avatar, sees through Weigel’s bullshit, and despite his full beard is maybe secretly a mean teen-ager?

OK I will try again…

Dude, if you are pro G A Y Marriage, Open Borders, and Voted for ObaMao the ONE thing you are NOT is conservative. You may not even qualify as a RINO.

You are in the midst of an identity crisis. Tough Luck. If it walks like a duck…

PS - Get a new photo. You look like a college freshman who does not need to shave yet. NOBODY will take you seriously who looks at that picture.

PPS - Try Proactive might help the “skin” condition.

Haha, that’s not real human skin, that’s socialism.

caseoftheblues wins with +21 votes for being the first person to FINALLY call out Weigel for his “boot licking reporting of the Obama administration” in his role as somebody who reports on the conservative movement:

You and those like you have sullied the profession of journalism probably beyond repair….your refusal to do your jobs and instead be used by Democrats and Unions have imperiled our country and our future. Your boot licking reporting of the Obama administration has allowed unthought of corruption, dirty back room dealing,civil rights violations, our very Republic to be sold off in pieces to Unions and other “valued” voting and campaign contributing blocs. The daily atrocities that occur in the present administration…and you and other “journalist”….ask nothing, investigate nothing and in fact to aLL YOU CAN TO COVER-UP and distract with those important stories about Sarah Palin and her breasts etc… You( and your entire profression) should be as sickened by yourself as we are of you… but you don’t appear to have the insight or understanding to grasp how utterly you have failed in your profession and the role you were supposed to perform in our Representative Republic.

When hovered over, Mikeyh0 is revealed as “Me? I’m just an older cabbie who loves this country. Arizona is home.” So of course he knows Weigel is bisexual, expertly:

Will the real David Weigel just go away? Maybe Hollywood could do your life’s story. “The Days of Whine and Poses.” Never heard of this guy but he must be important somehow to someone, some where. A bit of a switch-hitter, I’d say.

Finally, maxine_summit gets down to the real issue, Weigel using potty-mouth adjectives, something great Renaissance artists would NEVER do:

Just because we have freedom of speech does not mean stooping to using foul adjectives such as your “mind [----]” to describe mental confusion.

A great writer uses words like the Italian Renaissance painter, Michelangelo used paint.

Something to think about, Dave. Something to think about.