Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen said the quiet part out loud this week when he bragged that the newspaper’s opinion section was now thoroughly “conservative” after Donald Trump praised his most recent op-ed.
Thiessen’s declaration comes on the heels of billionaire owner Jeff Bezos imposing an ideological realignment of the Post’s opinion page, which has resulted in an exodus of talent and the hiring of an editor who shares his vision of dedicating the section to the “support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”
The admission from Thiessen, a Fox News contributor who served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, came after prominent MAGA personalities expressed shock over his Washington Post piece endorsing Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. (The president, despite his persistent lobbying for the award, lost out to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.)
“Not only does Donald Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, but there has arguably never been an American president who deserved it more,” Thiessen wrote in his Thursday column, adding that Trump has “an unprecedented peacemaking accord.”
“No way,” far-right host and Pizzagate conspiracist Jack Posobiec reacted on social media, sharing a screenshot of the column’s headline: “Yes, Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Mark Dubowitz, the leader of the neoconservative think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, responded to Posobiec’s tweet by suggesting that Thiessen was one of the few right-leaning writers at the paper. “Written by @marcthiessen who is a (welcome) outlier at the Washington Post,” Dubowitz posted.
“Thanks Mark. But not such an outlier any more! We’re now a conservative opinion page,” Thiessen promptly replied to the think tank head.
Meanwhile, the president made it clear that he appreciated Thiessen’s column, sharing a link on his Truth Social site alongside the caption: “Thank you Washington Post. Wow!!!”
Over the past year, the Washington Post has come under fire from both staff and readers over its rightward shift and efforts to appease Trump as Bezos has been accused of cozying up to the president, prompting the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of subscriptions and dozens of high-profile editors and journalists to flee the paper.
After sparking backlash last October for blocking the Post’s planned presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris, resulting in several editorial board members resigning over the mega-billionaire’s meddling, Bezos caused even more outrage in February with his new mandate for the paper’s opinion pages.
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” he declared. “We’ll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
Notably, the night he announced his new directive for the opinion section, Bezos had dinner with Trump.
Bezos’ push for the section to focus intently on traditionally conservative and libertarian principles led to the resignation of opinion editor David Shipley, who would eventually be replaced by 33-year-old Adam O’Neal, a former correspondent for The Economist and editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal.
Since turning to O’Neal, whose only management experience was a tumultuous one-year stint at the conservative outlet The Dispatch, the Post has seen a flood of veteran columnists and editors ditch the paper in recent months. Many of them took up beleaguered publisher Will Lewis’ offer of a buyout to those who “do not feel aligned” with the paper’s new editorial direction.
In recent weeks, O’Neal has appeared to be more overt with his efforts to reshape the opinion section and make it more conservative.
Last month, longtime writer Karen Attiah – the paper’s founding Global Opinions editor who rose to prominence following the horrific murder of her columnist Jamal Khashoggi – said she was fired over “unacceptable” social media posts she made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. Attiah also said she was the last full-time Black columnist left on the paper’s staff.
O’Neal’s most recent hires for the section include columnists from The National Review, The Spectator and The Boston Globe, who all “fit comfortably within the traditional conservative mold,” according to Status News’ Oliver Darcy. “People who have spoken to O’Neal have said he has signaled that he very much wants to recruit those on the political right to The Post,” Darcy further reported.
At the same time, O’Neal let go of at least a half-dozen staffers and a number of high-profile contractors from the opinion section last week, including editor Benjy Sarlin, media critic Jack Shafer and respected journalist Marc Fisher – who had been with the Post for roughly four decades.
Meanwhile, months into his tenure atop the opinion page, O’Neal finally granted his first public interview late last month. It was to Fox News.
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