I get why there’s an uproar, I’m just not sure I understand the intensity of it. I agree with John Miller. To the extent I’ve followed Weigel’s writing about conservatives, it’s been fairer than most (here’s my April 6 response to the Post’s decision to hire him in the first place). I do not doubt for a moment that many if not most of the young political reporters hired by the Post talk in private in similar terms and tones as Weigel did. That doesn’t mean they necessarily believe it. I doubt Weigel really wants Drudge dead. And, lest anyone think I’m throwing stones, I’ve been known to let uncharitable comments about various liberal figures pass my lips or keyboard from time to time myself. No, no, it’s true. Indeed, I take Weigel at his word that he made the comments he did because he thought he was just shooting the breeze with friends. But here’s the thing: many of his friends are precisely the kind of people who talk like that and those are also precisely the sort of people who work in the mainstream media. Indeed, the Washington Post has a very, very long history of hiring young writers from proudly liberal opinion magazines (as do many other mainstream media outlets). I stopped keeping count, but I’m sure at this very moment there at least a half dozen alumni of the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, or The American Prospect charged with writing ostensibly straight news or analysis for the paper. They might not have left the same paper (or listserv) trail, but does anyone doubt that Ezra Klein says similar stuff when he’s off-duty all the time? I don’t know if Weigel needed to resign or not. The revelation of his comments certainly might hurt his ability to get conservative activists to talk to him. But the fact that he talks this way among his fellow liberal journalist friends shouldn’t be cause for him to lose his job at the Post. Because he’s hardly alone. Weigel’s real sin was getting caught.