Presstitution Ring

(Late to this story since I am still lucky enough to have a job.) The Washington Post has apparently recrossed its legs and decided not to offer full access to itself, its reporters, staff, members of Congress and assorted Obama administration officials to any and  all well-heeled lobbyists.

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive “salon” at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to “those powerful few” – Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

With the Post newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Weymouth said in an email to the staff that “a flier went out that was prepared by the Marketing department and was never vetted by me or by the newsroom. Had it been, the flier would have been immediately killed, because it completely misrepresented what we were trying to do.”

The flier stated the goals thusly:

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders…..

One assumes the promotion went astray by failing to appear more as an upscale bordello instead of like a streetwalker near a lamppost.  

Whatever they were trying to do was simply pay for play. No matter how they try to dress it up.  One is reminded of the quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw: “We’ve already established what you are, ma’am. Now we’re just haggling over the price.” Only they appear to be haggling over the presentation of the wares, not the money.

UPDATE: The Post’s ombudsman reports that the Post has only committed to canceling the first bordello “salon“. Apparently, the “repackaging” will commence “Post”-haste. Perhaps a nice “personal Services” ad on Craig’s List.

This was more than a public relations disaster. This is several notches above that and well into “apocalypse” territory. The cancellation of just the one event pushes it past that line.

About Those Green Shoots

It turns out the green is just mold. Growing on the by-now ludicrous claims made in the past few months that the economy is turning around. 467,000 people lost jobs last month. The much-massaged unemployment rate inched up to 9.5%. (Whereas when the number of unemployed who have simply given up looking for work or who are taking whatever part-time jobs they can get are factored in, the unemployment rate now stands at an all-time record of 16.5%). In other words, this is bad and getting worse, not better.

Nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost during the first half of 2009, more than the 3.1 million lost in all of 2008.

“It’s not the catastrophic numbers we saw earlier this year, but they’re still pretty damn lousy,” said Keith Hembre, chief economist with First American Funds.

The job losses don’t tell the full picture of the pain the labor market either. The average hourly work week fell to 33 hours from 33.1 hours in May, a record low in readings that go back to 1964. Average hourly wages were unchanged, so the shorter week shaved $1.85, or 0.3%, off of the average weekly paycheck.

The so-called underemployment rate, which counts those who are working part-time jobs because they couldn’t find a full-time position as well as discouraged job seekers who have stopped looking for work, rose to a record high 16.5%.

Those who have been out of work for six months or more, many who have run out of unemployment benefits, climbed to nearly 4.4 million, also a record high.

There are the usual raft of administration officials assuring everyone that the stimulus will kick in at any moment and everything will be all wonderful. Ponies for everyone! These would be the same liars optimists who swore that unemployment would stop at 8 % if the “stimulus” was passed. We are, in fact, worse off than the Obama administration predicted without a stimulus. By a rather large margin now.

The same incompetents people are also now assuring us that just as soon as they spend even more, everything will be even better than it is. Rational people shudder at the thought.

Here’s the fact: if something is supposed to stimulate the economy rapidly, it must be applied rapidly. The fact that most of the wonderful promised effects haven’t kicked in yet indicate that the “stimulus” was nothing more than a bloated spending plan, not meant to really do what it was supposed to but only to give out favors to friends.

That is one big reason things are going downhill as fast as they are. This is also why the administration makes nebulous claims of having “created or saved” 150,000 jobs, but can only name a dozen or so at any one time.

We have lost 3.4 million jobs in just the first half of the year. Versus 150,000 supposed saved or new jobs. You have to be completely unable to do math to not see the problem here. In which case, you would be perfectly suited to a job as an economic adviser to the current administration.

Hey! They created a job!