In an ironic twist for a tycoon whose company has always kept its distance from the press, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has agreed to pay $250 million cash for The Washington Post.

The purchase takes the newspaper out of the hands of the Graham family, one of the most storied media dynasties in U.S. history, and puts it under the control of one of the 21st century's most media-shy tech moguls.

Though Amazon has been making content deals left and right, both as a book publisher and as a streaming video service through Amazon Prime, this is something different. Amazon was not officially involved in the purchase, suggesting that Bezos has something else in mind. It would appear that Bezos is simply interested in owning a newspaper – and perhaps in boosting the health of the traditionally liberal Post.

In a letter to Post employees, Bezos says that he won't be leading the paper directly day-to-day. "I am happily living in 'the other Washington' where I have a day job that I love," he writes, referring to his role as CEO at Seattle-based Amazon.

The purchase did not include the Post Co.'s Kaplan test-prep division, the company's greatest source of revenue. Nor did it include Slate, TheRoot.com, or Foreign Policy.

On the surface, buying any newspaper in the chronically dismal climate for print carries the same air of quixotic adventurism as another Bezos pet project, the search for moon rockets on the bottom of the ocean. Bezos is also described by the Post as a longtime friend of the Graham family, especially the Post Co.'s chief executive Donald Graham, who advised Bezos on the Kindle also connected to the tech industry as a member of Facebook's board of directors.

Beyond doing his buddy a favor, however, Bezos may have more serious reasons for wanting a stronger presence in the other Washington. As Amazon continues to rapidly expand its physical operations and its rapid growth as one of the world's dominant retailers online or off, it's possible to imagine Bezos seeking a more influential platform in the nation's capital.

Bezos himself has not shown a penchant for high visibility on policy issues (most of his federal campaign contributions have gone to Democrats.), with the exception of his financial support of legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington state. But the optics of the Post purchase just days after President Obama appeared at an Amazon warehouse in Tennessee to tout the company as a job creator are hard to ignore.

One justification for the buy that seems difficult to believe is that Bezos hopes to make money directly off the Post. The newspaper says its operating revenue has fallen 44 percent over the past six years, and its print circulation has fallen 7 percent during the first half of this year alone.

Then again, Bezos has not shown himself to be overly concerned with turning a short-term profit. Despite massive sales growth and revenues of more than $60 billion last year (nearly three times the expected ad revenue of the entire U.S. newspaper industry this year, according to research firm eMarketer), Amazon ended 2012 in the red. At the same time, its stock is trading near all-time highs as investors show continued confidence that Bezos' huge investments in infrastructure will ultimately pay off.

Amazon has also demonstrated increasing savvy in the ad game. This past year, its site netted nearly $610 million in worldwide ad revenues, a figure eMarketer expects to grow by more than one-third this year to about $835 million.

Still, if Bezos thinks he can save print, he's truly playing a long game.