DECK CHAIRS REARRANGED: Top Washington Post columnist resigns, accusing publisher of killing piece.

A top political columnist for The Washington Post resigned today, accusing Post chief executive and publisher Will Lewis of killing her column that criticized owner Jeff Bezos’s drive to overhaul the opinion pages to focus on his libertarian priorities.

Post columnist and Associate Editor Ruth Marcus, who has worked at the paper for four decades, says she can no longer stay there.

“Jeff’s announcement that the opinion section will henceforth not publish views that deviate from the pillars of individual liberties and free markets threatens to break the trust of readers that columnists are writing what they believe, not what the owner has deemed acceptable,” Marcus wrote in a resignation letter obtained by NPR.

More than 75,000 digital subscribers canceled in the 48 hours after Bezos revealed his intentions late last month, which included an edict that the paper would not print opposing views; then Opinions Editor David Shipley stepped down after vainly trying to dissuade Bezos from his course.

Marcus confirmed to NPR she had resigned and the authenticity of the letter but declined further comment.

“Will’s decision to not …run the column that I wrote respectfully dissenting from Jeff’s edict – something that I have not experienced in almost two decades of column-writing – underscores that the traditional freedom of columnists to select the topics they wish to address and say what they think has been dangerously eroded,” she wrote.

Whew — it’s a good thing the owners of the New York Times don’t try to influence the paper’s content the way that Bezos does!

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I quit USA Today because they spiked my pre-election column on how the press was ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop story. I did not experience that “traditional freedom” then.