Bowing the Knee. Again.

The Wapo's Profile in Uncourage.

“The Streisand effect¹ is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information.” — Wikipedia

The cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winner Ann Telnaes that was spiked by the Washington Post

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We began 2025 pretty much the way the late, lamented year ended: With yet another embarrassing case of premature capitulation. Yet somehow the Washington Post managed to combine cowardice, self-sabotage, and ghastly timing in one tidy bundle of cravenness. And it cost them its Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist.

We’ve come a helluva long way from “Democracy dies in darkness” to this moment of journalistic cringe.

Lest you missed this story: Cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from the Post Friday after editors spiked a cartoon depicting billionaire media moguls — including Post owner Jeff Bezos — genuflecting before Donald Trump as they offered him cash.

Alongside Bezos, the censored cartoon featured Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman offering Trump sacks of tribute. Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong is offering a tube of lipstick, while Mickey Mouse — representing Disney/ABC — lies prostrate before the Trumpian colossus.²

But, of course, it was the image of Bezos — who dined with Trump and Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago — that triggered Wapo’s Profile in Uncourage at an especially inopportune moment: The Post is still reeling from the massive loss of subscribers after Bezos killed the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, and the paper is in the process of hemorrhaging star journalists, who are fleeing from the Bezos-induced implosion of the storied institution.

Now, as a result of the decision to spike the cartoon, the Post once again looks weak and compromised, at the same time that it has managed to attract far, far, far more attention to the cartoon than it would otherwise have gotten.

David Shipley, who has the deep misfortune of being the editorial page editor of Bezos’s paper, is anxiously denying that the decision to kill the cartoon was “a reflection of a malign force.” Rather, he insists, his attempt to euthanize the image “was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column – this one a satire – for publication. The only bias was against repetition."

But this is piffle on stilts, and everybody knows it.³

In announcing her resignation from the Post, Telnaes wrote that in her decade-and-a- half penning cartoons, “I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.”

While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon. To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press.

There are, of course, quibbles from the cheap seats. Some critics will suggest that by including Bezos in the cartoon, Telnaes was putting Shipley and the other editors in an impossible position — and daring the Post to spike it. And it’s true that few publications have featured images mocking their owners. I have a good friend who thinks that depicting Bezos was actually over the line, and wondered whether the legendary Herblock would have “gotten away with a fuck-you cartoon about [former post owner] Katie Graham.” That is an interesting question. But then, again, Katie Graham never deserved a fuck-you as richly as Jeff Bezos.

But it’s fair to say that Telnaes was, indeed, testing the limits of “Democracy dies in darkness.” Good for her.

Wrote Telnaes on Substack:

There will be people who say, “Hey, you work for a company and that company has the right to expect employees to adhere to what’s good for the company”. That’s true except we’re talking about news organizations that have public obligations and who are obliged to nurture a free press in a democracy. Owners of such press organizations are responsible for safeguarding that free press— and trying to get in the good graces of an autocrat-in-waiting will only result in undermining that free press.

As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, “Democracy dies in darkness.”⁴

**

Exit take: To fully absorb the profound stupidity of the Wapo’s decision, consider the alternative timeline in which the paper published Telnaes’s sketch. If the Wapo had published it, both the paper and Bezos would have looked… better. The paper would have reasserted a modicum of independence and integrity; and even Bezos would have benefited.

Instead of looking like a thin-skinned, craven autocrat, he would have looked like someone big enough to tolerate criticism.

Instead, he told us — again — who he really is.

And what’s happening in Hollywood?

Via the Hollywood Reporter:

Something strange has been happening to The Apprentice, which despite acute timeliness and an 83 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes has been willed away by the industry. Most distribution execs wouldn’t touch it; actors won’t talk about it. The film shows how Cohn’s bare-knuckle approach shaped a young Trump. And whether entertainers fear validating Trump’s relevance or worry about repercussions for seeming critical of his power, they’ve sidestepped the subject. What if they made a movie about Roy Cohn and everyone was afraid of a blacklist?

Some thoughts about Liz Cheney

On this eve of January 6… (BTW: subscribers will receive an anniversary newsletter tomorrow morning.)

President Joe Biden’s decision to award Liz Cheney the Presidential Citizens Medal predictably triggered MAGA and its Fox News lickspittles.

Fox’s Brit Hume declared the decision “repulsive.’ Echoing Trump’s complaints, Hume complained that January 6 Committee hearing were a “show trial.” He complained that all of its members were “chosen by Nancy Pelosi, and was produced like a TV show. There was no cross examination of witnesses. The media fell for it, but it was utterly one-sided.”

So, this is perhaps a good time to remind ourselves that the committee was, indeed one-sided, because the Trumpified GOP killed every attempt to have a bipartisan investigation.

In May 2023, then-GOP leader Kevin McCarthy killed a bipartisan deal that had been agreed upon by House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson and the panel’s top Republican, Rep. John Katko of New York. That agreement would have given McCarthy almost everything he wanted, including “an even number of Democrats and Republicans and sign-off from both sides for subpoenas.” (See: Kevin McCarthy won’t support January 6 commission and sides with Republicans downplaying the insurrection | CNN Politics.”

Of course, Mitch McConnell followed suit: “McConnell turns Senate Republicans against Jan. 6 commission - POLITICO.”

Later, McCarthy refused to appoint any members to the Select Committee: “How Kevin McCarthy tried to sabotage the House January 6 investigation | Vox.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s months-long campaign to undermine the committee House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) set up to investigate the January 6 insurrection finally came to a culmination on Wednesday, when he announced he won’t be nominating any Republicans to serve on it after all.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how we got the Committee that so badly twisted Dr. Hume’s undies.

In fairness though, Hume’s kvetching paled beside Trump’s own whining. On Friday he lashed out on social media [insert usual blather and disinformation].

Unfazed, Cheney responded:

Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us.

Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you.

Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic?

We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic — to protect the America we love from you.

Finally

The pettiest man alive has some thoughts.

Our Gimpy Dog

Poor Auggie tore one of his toenails, so he has to wear the boot for a while. He hates it.

Mom, could you take it off? Please.

1. “The effect is named for American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attorney attempted in 2003 to suppress the publication of a photograph showing her clifftop residence in Malibu, taken to document coastal erosion in California, inadvertently drawing far greater attention to the previously obscure photograph. The effect exemplifies psychological reactance, in which the attempt to hide information instead makes it more interesting to seek out and propagate.”

2. Zuckerberg and Altman have ponied up contributions for Trump’s inauguration. And like Bezos, Soon-Shiong vetoed his newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. Disney, which owns ABC, shocked the legal world by settling a Trump defamation suit against ABC News, agreeing to pay $15 million to an as-yet non-existent Trump foundation and $1 million toward his legal fees.

3. Writes Jamison Foser:

Look, this is bullshit. It is risible to suggest that the world’s most powerful billionaires — men who control Facebook, Amazon, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Disney, ABC News, and OpenAI — aligning themselves with an aspiring autocrat is unworthy of two columns (one satirical) and a drawing.

And Shipley’s claim that the Post opinion section has a “bias … against repetition”? As I write this, at 8:50 pm on January 4¹ the main page of the opinion section at WashingtonPost.com currently features the following:

“The 10 worst things Biden did in 2024” by Marc Thiessen

“The 10 best things Biden did in 2024” by Marc Thiessen

“Dave Barry’s 2024 year in review” by Dave Barry²

“24 good things that happened in 2024” by the Editorial Board

“2025 promises to be tumultuous. Here’s our New Year’s resolution” by the Editorial Board

“How poker players keep New Year’s resolutions” by Annie Duke

“Classifying New Year’s resolutions,” a cartoon by Edith Pritchett

“Bringing in the New Year,” a cartoon by by Ann Telnaes

Clearly this is not an opinion section that has a “bias … against repetition.”

4. The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists put out a statement in support of Telnaes, a past president of the group:

With the resignation of editorial cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize winner Ann Telnaes from The Washington Post, corporate billionaires once again have brought an editorial cartoon to life with their craven censorship in bowing to a wannabe tyrant. Her principled resignation illustrates that while the pen is mightier than the sword, political cowardice once again eclipses journalistic integrity at The Washington Post.

The AAEC condemns the Post and their ethical weakness. Editorial cartooning is the tip of the spear in opinion, and the Post’s cowering further soils their once-stellar reputation for standing up and speaking truth to power. We weep for the loss of this once great newspaper.

We request that all editorial cartoonists do a finished version of her rough and post it in solidarity with Ann’s brave and sadly necessary decision. Please use the hash tag #StandWithAnn. Tyranny ends at pen point. It thrives in the dark, and The Washington Post simply closed its eyes and gave in like a punch-drunk boxer.

— The AAEC Board of Directors