Farhad Manjoo at Salon reports:

Brady said the site picked Domenech for two reasons: He’s conservative and he’s provocative. Brady denied that the paper hired Domenech as a way to deflect criticism from the right that Dan Froomkin, one of its most popular columnists, is too liberal. “That’s not true and it never was,” he said.
“We looked at a lot of people,” Brady said of the selection process. “We didn’t have anybody on the site who is on a consistent basis discussing issues of conservatives, someone who’s loyal to the cause of conservatism and not the administration. We were looking for people whose opinions are not necessarily in line with the majority of people who read the site. We wanted to create a little bit of buzz and controversy as well.” And Domenech, Brady said, fit the bill. “He was provocative.”

If the goal was to create buzz and controversy, Brady succeeded. So maybe that was the wrong goal, hmm? Maybe the goal should have been to hire a blogger who could do in-depth reporting and analysis from a conservative perspective. Apparently the Post thinks only liberals — not conservatives — are capable of that.

Also note Brady’s repeated assertion that Domenech’s hiring had nothing to do with conservative criticism of Dan Froomkin. To the extent that this is contradicted by Deborah Howell’s Dec. 11th column, in which she reported that Brady was thinking of hiring a conservative blogger to supplement Froomkin, all I can say is that I e-mailed Howell this morning and asked her to explain the discrepancy.

She hasn’t written me back, and until she does I am through arguing with Greg Sargent — except to say that yes, I think it’s pretty likely that Howell is wrong, because I think it is likely that Brady told her about pre-existing plans to hire a conservative blogger and that Howell assumed in the context of the Froomkin fight that the decision was made to balance Froomkin’s liberal take. But of course, I don’t know, and neither of us will know for sure until Howell herself answers the question. When she does, I’ll be happy to report the response no matter what it is.

I would, however, like to congratulate Greg for actually making it through an entire post without misspelling my name. And that “Stephen Spurious” line? Hilarious. Typical of the classy behavior the left-wing blogs have displayed throughout this entire affair.