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Evan Thomas Then & Now

3:33 PM, Jun 9, 2009 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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Pete Wehner follows up on his earlier takedown of Newsweek editor Evan Thomas. Thomas, you'll recall, made a comment last week that would, in less extraordinary times, be fatal to a journalist's career. Chris Matthews didn't even bat an eye:

Matthews:...Evan, you remember '84. It wasn't 100 years ago. Reagan and World War II and the sense of us as the good guys in the world, how are we doing?

EVAN THOMAS: Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama's had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he - he has a very different job from - Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.' We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something - I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world, he's sort of God.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

Now Wehner finds a comment from Thomas in 2007, when the occupant of the White House was only a mere mortal:

Gordon Peterson: "What do you think, Evan? Are the mainstream media bashing the president unfairly?"

Evan Thomas: "Well, our job is to bash the president, that's what we do...

More by Michael Goldfarb

The decision to bring Stephen Colbert on board as guest editor was a pathetic gimmick and an embarrassment to Newsweek, but a magazine edited by Colbert will necessarily be less partisan, and more credible, than one edited by Evan Thomas. Colbert's ridiculous character even conceded that George W. Bush wasn't himself God, but that "clearly God hired George W. Bush." Thomas has quite literally gone beyond parody.