Howard Kurtz:

The Washington Times reached into its chief rival’s newsroom for a new executive editor yesterday, naming Washington Post national reporter John Solomon to succeed Wesley Pruden at the paper’s helm.

Solomon was an unexpected choice to take over what Pruden, who has run the Times for 16 years, has long described as a conservative newspaper. But Solomon, 41, who spent two decades at the Associated Press and is not known as an ideological journalist, said he doesn’t view the paper in those terms.

Oh, that John Solomon!

Eric Alterman:

This would be funny were it not also important. Kurtz doesn’t think Solomon is an ideological journalist because he shares his ideology, which includes contempt both for liberals and democracy as well as the politics of substance. I never really noticed Solomon until I started wondering what kind of self-respecting reporter would ever wish to devote himself to a full-on investigation of a presidential candidate’s haircut, and then, in public no less, put his name on such a story as if he were actually proud of this accomplishment. I see from my friends at Think Progress that my misgivings were not misplaced. For instance:

* Solomon tried to link Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to the Jack Abramoff scandal by reporting on Reid contacts with Abramoff-tied lobbyist, but overlooked the fact that Reid voted against lobbyists’ favored bill.
* Solomon took comments by Ambassador Joe Wilson out of context in effort to claim he “acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak’s column first identified her.”
* In a non-story, Solomon reported that Reid accepted boxing tickets from a state government agency, despite that he then did the opposite of what the agency wanted.
* In 2006, Solomon claimed that Reid “collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale,” even though Reid actually only made a $700,000 profit on the sale.
* Solomon wrote a story calling Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) a hypocrite on campaign finance reform, but buried quotes by critics of big money in government exonerating him for “all the things the article criticizes him for doing.”
* In July, Solomon “devoted nearly 1,300 words to the ‘controversy’ surrounding” John Edwards’ haircut.
* In a front page story, Solomon baselessly suggested that John Edwards had engaged in a shady land deal, but never provided proper context for the sale. His reporting was criticized by the Post’s ombudsman.

This is exactly the kind of reporting that belongs in Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times. So congrats on the new job, fella. Alas, sadly, the editors of The Washington Post believe, with Howard Kurtz, that it also belongs in the Post, where it is considered “non-ideological.”

In light of the above, I note, thanks to Atrios, that it is apparently OK in The Washington Post to report as news, without presenting any evidence, that John Edwards “has offended many Democrats with his candidacy. They question his authenticity and see his shift from optimism to anger as the sign of an opportunistic politician.” Here. Now, the contention is not exactly false, but it is true in the banal sense that it is meaningless. Has Obama offended many Democrats? Has Hillary Clinton offended many Democrats? Obviously each has, if only those Democrats supporting others’ candidacies. But generally, reporters are supposed to be able to support their contentions in the news section of the paper with evidence. Still, it’s generally considered OK to say whatever you want about him in the paper, as I discussed in The Nation this week, here.