WAPO editor responds to my demand for Arkin to be fired.

No surprise, they said get stuffed, in a polite way. Then he did the first amendment dance, because of course us dumb military types have never heard of it: 

I sent the following to Caroline Little, WAPO CEO:

Dear Ms. Little,

We represent a consortium of influential bloggers who reach millions of Americans. The Washington Post has run an article from Bill Arkin in which he calls U.S. soldiers mercenaries, along with other more subtle insults. It is hard to take the objectivity of the Washington Post seriously when one of its' military writers openly derides the military.

We were all gravely insulted as many of us are veterans and we all feel passionately about our servicemen and servicewomen. Mr. Arkin has tried to state that we have misunderstood him, but there was no misunderstanding. We read exactly what he said.

We ask the Washington Post to correct the problem and restore the faith of millions of readers by firing Arkin immediately. There will be no other resolution that will sooth our indignation. If the Washington Post chooses to retain a columnist who apparently finds it sporting to insult American soldiers, our group will conduct a legal boycott of the Washington Post and its advertisers. I can not stress this enough, Arkin must be fired. The boycott begins immediately; we are contacting the major Washington Post sponsors now. Our participant roster is increasing hourly.

Sincerely,

The response came from Jim Brady, listed as Executive Editor:

Ray,

Thanks for taking the time to write. We've obviously gotten a lot of negative response to Bill Arkin's column over the past two days, and many readers -- such as yourself -- have written to ask that we fire Bill. But we're not going to do that. The beauty of democracy is that everyone is not only entitled to their opinion, but is allowed to express it freely, even when others vehemently disagree. On top of that, washingtonpost.com allows readers who disgaree many forums to communicate that anger, i.e. comments on Bill's blog, letters to the editor, e-mails like this one and other venues. Because of that, the reaction has now gotten as much attention as the original column, which is terrific. But, to me, firing someone for expressing an opinion -- no matter how much others may disagree -- is a dangerous road to start down. Obviously, in that same spirit, I respect your right to take whatever actions you deem necessary because of your feelings about the column.

Thanks for taking the time to write,
Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

In short, Arkin has the right to free speech. Of course he does. That doesn't mean he has the right to his job.

I urge you all to take a copy of the above letter I sent and send it to

[email protected]

then send a variation of it to the advertising offices of the companies that support the WAPO.

Comments

[Ed Kasper]

I am glad that there is freedom of speech so i can hear others point of view. Especially when those points are made with creditability.