Really, Really Pist.

Hello. It is time for another visit to your prime alternative news source,

Take a look at a paper copy of this morning’s Washington Post. Do you see the enormous ad that wraps around the front page, the big red ad reproduced right above? No? Yeah, neither do we.

It was supposed to be there, right out front, delivering this message like a hissing torpedo on the doorsteps of influential, powerful people in Washington; they were apparently to be bulls-eye targeted by the ad, which would have been distribution-zoned to certain people and certain neighborhoods. But a few days ago the newspaper scrapped the ad without warning or explanation, apparently after the contract was signed, declining the more than $100,000 in ad fees that were to have been paid by the authors, the good-government advocacy groups Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Why did The Post not run the ad — indeed, run from the ad? Alas, we can only speculate, because The Post is so far pointedly, harrumphingly not discussing it. So this would be cheap conjecture on our part, unworthy of such an august publication.

Haha.

The Post almost certainly declined the ad because it would have really, really pissed off Donald Trump. And shamefully, The Washington Post seems to have devoted itself in recent months to the important journalistic enterprise of not pissing off the notoriously tetchy and vindictive Donald Trump.

It was very likely the brazen, wiggle-the-butt-in-your-face nature of the wraparound that gave them cold feet. Such stridently prominent political ads are not common but not unheard of. Though, to be fair, newspapers are free to decline any ads they feel may violate their standards.

According to CNN, the ad is part of a petition drive by Common Cause and the SPLC designed “to raise a massive public outcry demanding US lawmakers take action before more damage is done.” The petition is said to have nearly 100,000 signatures.

So. The Post does not care about my opinion, but my opinion is they need to explain their rationale publicly, however lame or sniveling or defensive it may sound. That’s because silence here, fairly or unfairly, seems damning; after the events of the past many months, the newspaper has lost the benefit of the doubt and the presumption of innocence when it comes to apparent deferential lickspittlery shown to Donald Trump. Was owner Jeff Bezos a part of this decision? They should say. Even if it hurts to say it. Transparency is good.

They won’t, I’m pretty sure.

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