Hugo Chavez and Milton Coleman
Last week, the Washington Post ran a stultifyingly stupid “essay” by Post Editor Milton Coleman, describing in absurd detail Coleman’s encounter with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Hugo’s bad-boy swagger had Coleman weak in the knees from the get-go, and nine hours later, well, let Milton tell it: “We exchanged smiles, handshakes and farewells. He had the last word. ‘Adios,’ he said, pausing slightly, smiling and adding, ‘Hermano.’”
The cherry on top of this pathetic righteous brothers’ ego trip is that Coleman actually had the nerve to run a picture of himself hanging with his main man (shown above). Apparently, no one at the Post had the balls to tell him that his article was shit and that running a photo of himself was shit beyond shit.
I read half a dozen DC politico-blogs on a regular basis, including Slate (OK, west coast, but still), New Republic, reason, Washington Monthly, Josh Marshall’s Talking Points, Andrew Sullivan, and Matthew Yglesias. None of them bothered to call the Post on this crap. Apparently, most of them are too busy rehashing the Iowa caucus. The one site that did bother to comment was the Weekly Standard, which is way not my favorite source. Can’t one be against both Bush and Chavez? And against sloppy, ego-driven journalism as well? Hello?
