I think it was in 2018 at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in L.A. that Jeff Bezos confronted me with a simple question: “When are you guys going to stand up to Trump?” I was at NBC at the time, and a bit startled – “What do you mean?” I said. He was in my face. “Come on, you’re letting him off the hook!” He was steely eyed – I pushed back. “I don’t think that’s quite right…” Before I said anything more, he shook his head and moved on.
I’ve thought a lot about that encounter recently. When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for a meager $250 million, it seemed like a bargain basement deal, and he would be the perfect new owner ushering one of the great newspapers into the digital age like no one else could.
My best friends at the Post including the legendary Bob Woodward were hopeful and excited. Here we are now bewildered and pissed off at the arrogance of the fourth richest man in the world tearing the paper apart, firing more than 300 people with his insanely stupid leadership. Go figure!
Peggy Noonan’s column over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal, “A Lament for the Washington Post,” and Tina Brown’s “Bafflement with Bezos” on her Substack, “Fresh Hell,” yesterday are must reads.