posted by on August 14 at 16:03 PM

When Karl Rove’s resignation was brought up at a Seattle Times news meeting yesterday some of the assembled reporters cheered. This has, of course, bunched panties in cracks on Fairview Ave. Seattle Times Executive Editor Dave Boardman sent out a memo reprimanding the news staff: “That sort of expression is simply not appropriate for a newsroom,” he said. Adding, “As we head into a major political year, now’s a good time to remember: Please keep your personal politics to yourself.”

David Postman writes about the incident on his blog—which he probably got the green light to do because, as Boardman notes in his memo, there was an “outside guest in the room.” Hm. Wonder who that was. Anyway, here’s Postman:

It sounds like a conservative’s parody of how a news meeting would be run. I wasn’t there, but I’ve talked to several people who were. It was only a couple of people who cheered and they, thankfully, are not among the people who get a say in news play. But obviously news staff shouldn’t be cheering or jeering the day’s news…

Well, gee. Maybe the reporters cheered because they, of all people, are in the best position to recognize Rove’s departure as a positive development for the nation—and for the ideal that all journalists everywhere honor the most: the truth. Everything that came out of Rove’s mouth—even spit—was a lie. After six years of Bush/Cheney/Rove, all journalists everywhere, irrespective of political affiliation, should be glad to see Rove go. No one has made a move at the White House over the last six and half years without Rove’s okay; nothing has been said by the executive branch without Rove’s okay. And everything that’s come out of the White House—from the Iraq war to global warming to torture to the outings of CIA operatives to the firing of those eight US attorneys—has been false and/or misleading. And daily reporters have had to stand there, taking dictation, relaying the lies with a straight face, running off to find Democrats to tell them what they already know: It’s all bullshit—every paragraph, every sentence, every word. Any reporter that didn’t cheer Rove’s departure shouldn’t be a reporter.

Back to Postman:

Jokes get made in newsrooms, of course—even what you would call gallows humor. And Boardman wrote that he was “all for equal-opportunity joking at both parties’ expense.”

So it seems that even jokes at daily papers, like quotes and op-ed columns, have to be apportioned out equally. Why? Because charges of “liberal media bias” make you piss your pants. It must suck to work at a place where you’re not allowed to feel contempt for people that spit in your faces day after damn day.