Hell Froze Over: WaPo Defends Ballroom in Editorial

Months ago, Jeff Bezos made clear that he wanted to clean out the most insane Opinion Page columnists and restore some sanity to the Washington Post’s Opinion/Editorial Page. 

And there was quite the exodus as the Augean Stables were cleaned out. David Shipley,  the editorial page editor, resigned. Ruth Marcus, out. Karen Attiah, out. Philip Bump, out. Jonathan Capehart, out. We all laughed and toasted Jen Rubin’s departure, of course. 

But even with the massive turnover in personnel, how many of us expected the  Post to do more than make a nod to sanity as it continued on much the same course?

Yet, here we are. Hell has, indeed, frozen over. 

Washington Post lead editorial in Sunday’s newspaper is a defense of the White House ballroom. https://t.co/1Xm0g85Dp4

— James Hohmann (@jameshohmann) October 25, 2025

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. 

Though the fundraising for the ballroom creates problematic conflicts of interest, two examples validate Trump’s aggressive approach. After a fence jumper got inside the White House in 2014, it was obvious that better perimeter fencing needed to be installed. But doing so involved five public meetings of the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) over two years, as members took pains to ensure the fencing complied with environmental rules. Construction didn’t begin until July 2019.

Or consider the modest Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial near the National Air and Space Museum. Congress authorized its creation in 1999. Architect Frank Gehry was selected in 2009. The NCPC rejected Gehry’s initial design proposal in 2014 before approving a revised plan the next year. The Commission of Fine Arts gave its approval in 2017. The memorial wasn’t opened until late 2020. By contrast, Eisenhower planned and executed D-Day in about six months.

Twenty years to build a memorial. Government at its best. 

This is a one-two punch of an editorial, not because it will move the needle in any significant way or because the Post is suddenly going to become a Trump outlet. The ballroom issue is, in itself, minor. It is a manufactured controversy. 

What the editorial does is calmly point out that 1) Trump is right in what he is doing, and 2) that he is having to “subvert norms” because the norms are insane and destructive. 

Something needed to be done. The existing “norms” (not rules, because the White House is mostly exempt) and red tape make doing anything nearly impossible, so Trump cut the Gordian Knot. He saw a need and filled it. 

This is about normalizing Trump again, which would be devastating to the left’s strategy if the strategy works. A huge fraction of the difficulty Trump faces is having to deal with manufactured hysteria, and if enough “mainstream” outlets decide to opt out of creating the hysteria, it will defang the left. 

If, instead of echoing the “Trump is Hitler” nonsense, newspapers compare him to his real spirit-politician, Teddy Roosevelt, the narrative would shift. It’s not that liberals would get on board, but many others who are upset at the upset itself might give Trump more breathing room. 

The reaction to the editorial is exactly what you would expect:

Nobody is interested in the actual argument; it’s thousands of hysterical comments. 

One editorial won’t change the world, or much at all. But the opposition to Trump is driven by the hysterical tone, and if the hysterical tone shifts to something more neutral, that could have an effect in the longer run. 

Still, The New York Times is the big prize in the newspaper biz, and it is unlikely to shift much any time soon. 

But, perhaps, The Washington Post is a canary in the coal mine. CBS now has Bari Weiss. The Washington Post agreed with Donald Trump. 

Hell may indeed be freezing over. 

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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