HELL FROZE OVER: WaPo Defends Ballroom in Editorial.

Now, it would be no surprise to find an opinion piece by a moderate or conservative defending the ballroom addition, even if the Editorial Board were the same as before. Publishing an occasional piece by a Republican to present the image of balance is standard practice.

But this piece is an Editorial, presented as the official position of the Editors. And it is a slap in the face to liberals, both by endorsing the ballroom itself and by slamming how hard it is to do anything in America anymore.

The teardown of the White House’s East Wing this week is a Rorschach test. Many see the rubble as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard of norms and the rule of law, a reflection of his willingness to bulldoze history and a temple to a second Gilded Age, paid for by corporate donors. Others see what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, a change agent unafraid to decisively take on the status quo and a developer slashing through red tape that would stymie any normal politician.

In classic Trump fashion, the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible. Privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents need to be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners, and VIPs are forced to use porta-potties.

Everybody who is not Trump-deranged knows that if any other president had done the same thing, the reaction would be entirely different. The issue is Trump, not the ballroom. Nobody has any special feelings about the East Wing–it’s likely that many people who are blowing their tops didn’t even know that it existed. They probably thought the East Wing was just the eastern half of the Executive Mansion, which is really a different building entirely.

“CBS now has Bari Weiss. The Washington Post agreed with Donald Trump. Hell may indeed be freezing over.”