Subject: You fired Dan Froomkin?

Shocked. I am shocked. Tell me; when do you merge with The Washington Times? Any day now?

Pathetic. Hire him back, TODAY, if you want the least bit of credibility with me and literally millions of other readers. Otherwise...the dustbin of history awaits you. Katharine Graham is rolling over in her grave today. You blithering idiots!

His reply:

Thanks for writing. As you may know, as ombudsman I operate independently from The Post's newsroom and management. But I regularly inform them of what I'm hearing from readers. Currently, I'm receiving a large number of e-mails from readers like you who are unhappy with Mr. Froomkin's departure. I appreciate your comment and will share your views.

Best wishes,

Andy Alexander
Washington Post Ombudsman

Me:

Thanks for your reply. If I may offer one more bit of advice before the Washington Post falls into irrelevance:

Write a column about it, and take a stand. This is ridiculous, and if you don't know it, you aren't comprehending the situation. Froomkin was the only person in Washington who skewered what needed to be skewered, who talked about what needed to be talked about, who informed us about what we needed to be informed about.

We aren't stupid. If Obama makes a mistake, or if Obama continues a Bush policy that is absolutely abhorrent (and about 99% of them were, that is NO joke), if Obama uses an excuse as lame as 'we wish to avoid Dick Cheney being made fun of on late night television and comedy shows', and nobody else is reporting this...then you NEED Dan Froomkin.

You just lost a lot of readers. Your management needs to know this. If they don't care, then they obviously don't see the direction newspapers are taking these days. They'll be at the elephant graveyard before they ever know it.

The ombudsman's reply was a bit bland, but it could have been worse. Like the response I got from the New York Times in 2001: I wrote and asked their ombudsman why, after eight years of investigating President Clinton for what was ultimately bogus Whitewater corruption charges, they were not investigating Vice President Cheney as intensely for his involvement in Halliburton's $100 million Enron-style writedowns?

I have the email somewhere, but this is the gist of it, swear to God:

We'll investigate Vice President Cheney when the Democrats start hollering about it, and not before.

Some wankering, eh? Swear to God.