The Washington Post: When Victory Begets Decline

As news and opinion track the layoff of 30% of the Washington Post's workforce, I encourage people to note the telling words of the great Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in the After Watergate chapter of his book, "A Good Life", where he describes the "post-Watergate caution of editors". "What the newspaper did not need", he felt, "was another fight to the finish with another president--especially a Republican president, and especially a successful fight. Without the suggestion of a formal decision, I think the fires of investigative zeal were allowed to bank."

In obituaries for Ben Bradley, little was said of those years 1981 to 1991, which coincided with the Reagan/Bush era and Bradlee's last ten years as executive editor of the Post. That was a time when ever more strident accusations of liberal bias were beginning to wear editors down. Yet, those words in his autobiography suggest if anything a reverse bias.

When the movie "The Post" came out, celebrating Bradlee, I wrote an essay entitled, "The Post-- Monument or Gravestone." Sometimes, the greatest victory can be the beginning of defeat. Monuments to greatness can begin to look more like gravestones over time.