I Promise I'm Not A Sociopathic Chatbot

100k foot view of the WaPo situation: I suppose it’s possible that Bezos sincerely formed, in his private thoughts, the principle that presidential endorsements are bad, and the timing of this articulation ~just happened~ to coincide with this principle being *obviously* advantageous to his company Blue Origin. It’s … possible! But, as a general matter, if you come up with a personal principle at the very moment when that principle is most convenient, the price you pay for that convenience is that nobody will trust you. Nor should they. To make a ludicrous but I think sort of helpful comparison: My principle on kitchen hygiene is I don’t think my kitchen countertops need weekly scrubbing. That’s the sort of thing to make clear to my wife when the counters are clean. If I articulate this principle for the first time 0.5 seconds after my wife tells me to scrub the kitchen counters on a day when I'm kind of busy, *of course* she won’t believe me. She *should not* believe me. It would be sort of touchingly hilarious if she did! “We don’t endorse presidential candidates” is a defensible position. Coming up with that principle during the editing process for a Harris endorsement days before your company is scheduled to meet with Donald Trump is not a decision whose timing deserves anybody’s trust. And the media environment is too competitive for news organizations to carelessly set fire to their integrity without enormous consequences.