The Washington Post is in trouble.  Jim Brady, the executive editor of WashingtonPost.com, thinks that the problem with transparency on his web site is that some readers are mean.  The real issue is credibility.  It is the job of the press to report the truth, without fear or favor.  What has happened is that the Washington Post has failed to show its commitment to the truth, and when pressed, has turned to raw power to enforce its claim to authority.

How else do you explain Jim Brady's choice to go onto Hugh Hewitt's radio show and discuss his editorial choices?  Hewitt is not a legitimate person with whom to discuss issues of honesty or transparency.  He is an enemy of the search for truth, because he consistently attempts to pollute the public record that the Washington Post is supposed to protect.  For instance, Hewitt made up, out of whole cloth, most of the examples in his book detailing how Democrats systematically try to steal elections.  Rick Perlstein pointed this out a year ago, documenting what Hewitt said:

-California Democratic operative Bob Mulholland threatened Arnold Schwarzenegger during the recall campaign with "real bullets." (Actually, he said that unlike in the movies he played in, the fights in politics weren't fake: "Schwarzenegger is going to find out that, unlike a Hollywood movie set, the bullets coming at him in this campaign are real.")

-That Al Gore in 2000 "broke a two-centuries-old tradition in American politics of keeping presidential politics out of the courts" (Hewitt has just broken an even older tradition of keeping lies out of books: the first lawsuit in Florida in 2000, of course, was filed by the Republicans).

-That military ballots were "excluded based on technicalities relating to postmarks and signatures" (yes: the "technicality" was voting after election day).

-That Robert Torricelli, unlike any Republican in God's creation, took gifts from a supporter.

-That "the last act in the recent abanonment of Democrats of all pretense to electoral ethics" consisted of the suit filed in the Ninth Circuit to postpone the Cali recall. (Hewitt neglects to mention that the suit called for fixing California's punch-card ballots to meet the standards set up in Bush v. Gore.)

Hewitt is a known fabricator of the historical record.  Brady's association with him, his move to go onto Hewitt's radio show and chit chat about how bad the liberal blogs are, is not appropriate.  It is the Washington Post deciding that Hewitt is its journalistic equivalent, and deserves legitimacy as a collegial media outlet.  There is a valid counter-argument, that Brady is not so much delegating legitimacy to Hewitt as he is explaining himself to an audience.  Yet, why didn't he take the time to go to Air America, or post on any number of liberal blogs with diaries, or in Jane Hamsher's comment area?  Why does he feel it beneath him to address directly the people who are criticizing him?  Why must he go to a right-winger who is a serial polluter of the public record, a person who doesn't allow comments, and explain his decision to shut out public discourse from the blog?

It's not free speech that's the issue, of course.  I'm writing this, aren't I, on this blog, so it's not like I'm getting censored.  No, this is about the media conversation, and who Brady feels deserves the right to have input into the Washington Post's editorial decisions.  It's not the readership, it's certain parts of that readership.  And that's a problem, because it means there's a legitimacy issue with the Washington Post.  Is that newspaper really committed to the truth, even when it's not pleasant?  Or do they, like Hewitt, just want to shout down those who ask them to hold to their own expressed ideals?