On February 26, Jeff Bezos —  founder of e-commerce giant Amazon and space travel company Blue Origin — dropped a note to staff at his 2013 acquisition, the Washington Post,  “to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.” He also tweeted the note to the public:

“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

A single-word summary of those “pillars”: Libertarianism.

Does Bezos really plan to put the Post  in the “L” column — if not in terms of political partisan affiliation, at least where editorial ideology is concerned?

If so, huzzah and kudos.

While the American newspaper community finds itself blessed by a libertarian paper here and there, most of them are smaller community publications.

From the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to USA Today (and, until now anyway), the big players are 100% “establishment,” though sometimes leaning ever so slightly “left” or “right” within a narrow spectrum of acceptable opinion.

Apart from an occasional novelty column, libertarian ideas mostly find themselves excluded. The largest overtly libertarian-leaning newspaper outfit (and a fine one at that)  is the Orange County, California Register and its affiliated southern California chain. I love the Register, and not just because it occasionally publishes my own columns.

I’d love nothing more than seeing the movement I belong to get the Post as jewel in its media crown.

But as always, the devil is in the details. If I had a nickel for every time the word “libertarian” — or even phrases like “personal liberties and free markets” — got used incorrectly or dishonestly, I could spend my time racing my Ferrari between a Manhattan apartment and a gated-community LA McMansion instead of submitting libertarian op-eds to newspapers.

Does Bezos really support “free markets?” If so, how does that square with the billions of tax dollars the federal government spends with his companies — for example, the $10 billion contract Amazon has with the Pentagon for its “Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure” project, or Blue Origin’s billions of dollars in launch contracts with DoD and NASA?

Does Bezos really support “personal liberties?” If so, why does Amazon provide its Rekognition surveillance software to, among other government entities, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement?

Color me skeptical. It seems more likely that Jeff Bezos’s version of “personal liberties and free markets” is just version 2.0 of Elon Musk’s whiny “free speech for me but not for thee” guff and corporate welfare queenery combo.

But please, Mr. Bezos, prove me wrong. And let me know if you’re looking for libertarian op-ed writers.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In mid-February, the White House barred Associated Press journalists from presidential events for refusing to change the name of a body of water from “the Gulf of Mexico” to “the Gulf of America” in its reporting.

AP sued on various grounds, including due process (citing a court ruling that press access to the White House “undoubtedly qualifies as liberty which may not be denied without due process of law under the fifth amendment”) and First Amendment protections (citing the same ruling).

On February 24, a federal judge refused to issue a temporary restraining order restoring AP’s access while the suit awaits resolution. AP reporters and photographers still possess White House press passes and can attend White House briefings; it’s the Oval Office and Trump’s personal presence  they’re excluded from.

Court precedent aside, I don’t see anything in the Constitution requiring the president to speak to, or the White House to “brief,” reporters at all, or specifying which particular agencies, publications, and journalists are part of a special protected class entitled to that kind of access.

In fact, I suspect many Americans wish that the president (not just this one — I’m speaking of the office, not the man)  acted a lot less like Dr. Phil (loud, annoying, omnipresent) and more like Punxsutawney Phil (silent, cute, and only very occasionally demanding our attention).

That said, if the press wants to cover the presidency, I suggest that the agencies, publications, and journalists get together and turn the tables.

Just as there’s no constitutional requirement for the president or the White House to host, humor, and answer to journalists, there’s no constitutional requirement for the press to cover the president or the White House at all.

Why don’t the major newspapers, television networks, etc. get together and set up the White House “press pool” on their own terms instead of subjecting themselves to the president’s terms?

They could rent, buy, or build a small studio/auditorium facility, handle their own journalist credentialing, and let the White House and the president know when they’ll be hosting briefings.

The president and/or press secretary could show up or not. If they showed, maybe they’d get some coverage. If not, there’s always other news to report, right?

In anything resembling a free society, an independent press is far more important than any functionary in any fancy office. America’s journalists should take that truth to heart and act on it.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Chaos.” That seems to be America’s go-to descriptor for the federal government since January 20. Depending on who you ask, US president Donald Trump, “special government employee” Elon Musk, and their “Department of Government Efficiency” are either cutting a bunch of government waste and inefficiency, or gutting a bunch of useful and necessary government functionality. Some people are very sure of which, but nobody seems very clued in to how.

So I asked Grok, the generative AI chatbot associated with Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) platform, to “suggest the most efficient organizational chart for the federal government’s executive branch.”

Grok’s reply (summarized):

First, the ol’ “unitary executive” theory with the president “as the executive power’s focal point.”

Secondly, a “lean inner circle” consisting of the White House chief of staff, the vice-president as a “flexible deputy,” and three “directors” — one for Security,” one for “Prosperity,” and one for “Governance” — with the 15 cabinet secretaries getting demoted to “deputy directors” and agency heads either “slotting” into those “buckets” or reporting to the chief of staff.

This setup, Grok tells me, “trims the fat” and provides “clearer chains of command” and “less duplication.”

I don’t know that Grok necessarily speaks for Musk, but I’d be surprised to learn he hadn’t asked it this sort of question himself, and when I read that answer I keep coming back to another question:

What should we want government be “efficient” AT?

The assumption underlying Grok’s answer is that government should be efficient at centralizing power into 1) as few hands as possible, and 2) hands that are loyal to and answerable to one person (the president) rather than to any higher power (the US Constitution, for example) or to any moral principle other than  the German Third Reich’s “fuhrerprinzip” or “leader principle.”

A snippet from Grok’s summary of the fuhrerprinzip itself: “In essence, it was a cult of personality masquerading as a governance model, designed to consolidate power and eliminate dissent.”

If Musk’s AI model reflects his own thinking, we may have our answer as to whether his controversial gesture at Trump’s inauguration was or wasn’t a “Nazi salute.”

I’m personally enjoying the chaos, at least a little, but not because I want “efficiency” or centralization of state power into the hands of one man and his loyalists. I want a weaker state, not a just smaller and less expensive state. I don’t trust Trump or Musk to deliver.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY