“Democracy Dies in Darkness” so says the foreboding new slogan of the Washington Post.
With the adoption of this phrase, the Post is essentially anointing itself the champion of government transparency. Sunlight, after all, is the best disinfectant.
But the Post’s push to depict itself as a great defender of democracy just doesn’t ring true.
Perhaps the paper is hoping readers will forget that just last September, its own editorial board published a piece explicitly aiming to downplay the importance of the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private server.
The Post chided Matt Lauer for dedicating a substantive line of questioning to the issue during a campaign forum, referred to it as “a minor email scandal,” and argued it was not “one of the most important issues facing the country this election.”
Clinton’s server, of course, constituted an unequivocal effort on her part to embrace the very darkness the Post claims it is seeking to avoid. As the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney summarized last September:
Clinton (1) set up her own email server; (2) conducted her official business from this account (including the sloppy handling of classified information); (3) kept the server secret from the legal authorities that own her work product; (4) failed to turn over the emails when she left office; (5) repeatedly misled the public about the emails; (6) deleted tens of thousands of them without letting the authorities see them; (7) falsely promised that none of them were work-related; and (8) all along chided the press that questioned her or said there was an investigation going on, even though there was.
That the institution now touting itself as a preeminent protector of transparency went out of its way to downplay these actions on Clinton’s part seems thoroughly disingenuous.
Whether democracy actually dies in darkness is up for debate, but hypocrisy thrives at the Washington Post.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
