Profile of Jennifer Rubin, Conservative Washington Post Columnist Confirms Previous Suspicions

The Washington Post is Who We Thought They Were

The Dismal Political Economist is known for a lot of things.  One is his relentless criticism of the Washington Post and its relentless drive to become the voice of Conservatism.  One of its successes in that endeavor has been the employment of Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin.

It has been the position of this Forum that when the Washington Post employees people like Ms. Rubin it does not do so because of the quality journalism someone like her brings to the paper.  The reason for this position is that people like Ms. Rubin and her ilk at the Post are not highly qualified experienced journalists. 

A profile of Ms. Rubin in Politico confirms much of this.

Here is a brief background statement on Ms. Rubin.

But Rubin, 49, who published her first piece of journalism in 2007 after a career doing legal work for Hollywood studios,

And why is she at the Post?

Rubin’s hire last November marked the Post’s third attempt at landing a conservative blogger. The first two ended disastrously, in 2006 when blogger Ben Domenech was forced out by allegations he’d plagiarized work for his college newspaper; and in 2010 when leaked emails from the next designated official conservative blogger, David Weigel, made clear that he wasn’t the movement conservative editors seemed to have thought he was.

(In fact, the Post has recently been courting other opinion writers on the right, in particular former Jesse Helms spokesman and Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, the leading defender of former Vice President Dick Cheney and the harsh interrogation he championed.)

And how does a Hollywood lawyer with no knowledge, expertise or experience in writing on politics and news even get to be a columnist?

the sole bumper sticker on her gray Honda Pilot reads, “JERUSALEM IS NOT A SETTLEMENT. It’s Israel’s Eternal And Undivided Capital.”

But with time on her hands, Rubin quickly turned to writing. In early 2007, she sold a freelance story on Mitt Romney to the Weekly Standard - arguing that he had flip-flopped on social issues since he ran for governor of Massachusetts - launching a career as a political blogger and, as the bumper sticker might suggest, foreign affairs commentator.

Yes, that’s right, put a bumper sticker on your car supporting Israel and in the Conservative world you are a foreign policy expert.  (And you thought it would be more difficult than that, didn’t you).

Like a good Conservative, Ms. Rubin saw no problem with a person like Sen. Marco Rubio telling a false story about his parents leaving Cuba (they left for economic reasons, not to escape Castro)

“If this is the best they have on Rubio, he’s in no peril whatsoever,” she wrote. “To the contrary, Rubio, having gone through a mainstream press attack, will likely endear himself to an even greater degree to the conservative base. If there’s one thing that all conservatives can agree on, it is their loathing of mainstream media.”

And that endeared her to some Conservatives, one of whom said this

“I don’t always agree with Jennifer Rubin, the not-liberal blogger at The Washington Post,” wrote William Jacobson, of the far-more-conservative blog Legal Insurrection.

“I love the use of ‘they.’ Who are they? They are her news and editorial bosses at WaPo, the ones who are sharpening their knives for 2012. ‘They’ are not ‘us.’ ‘They’ are the people ‘we’ despise.”

“Rubin was willing to call them out on their own website, to bite the hand that feeds her,” he wrote. “Jennifer! Attica! Jennifer! Attica!”

No, she didn’t call them out on their own website.  She didn’t name anybody.  She didn’t criticize the Post by name.  She didn’t attack the reporters by name who wrote the story.  She hid behind the “they” name.  (and notice how Mr. Jacobson states that “they” are people “we despise”.  Guess he didn’t read the “Conservatives act with civility, Liberals express hatred” commentaries that have graced the editorial pages of the WSJ amongst others).

Ms. Rubin is one of the many members of the main stream media that adores Mr. Romney.  That elicited this

Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom said in an email. “She brings a lot of credibility and knowledge on the issues that matter, particularly as they relate to American foreign policy.”

Of course, maybe he means foreign policy as in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Golden Globe awards they sponsor.  Yep, that is where a Hollywood lawyer would get her foreign policy experience.