Philly Inquirer editorial page editor Harold Jackson admits that decision to bring John Yoo on board was “a conscious effort on our part to counter some of the criticism of The Inquirer as being a knee-jerk liberal publication.”

Memo to Mr. Jackson: It’s not going to work. So long as your publication continues to endorse Democratic candidates or print liberal opinion pieces, you will continue to be lumped in with the “liberal media” as you always have been.

Worse, you’ve now shown that you can be bullied. Which means the assault on your paper will actually be stepped up.

It is only when you become explicitly and entirely conservative that you will escape these criticisms. You are playing a mug’s game, and it’s not going to help your circulation, nor your bottom line. In fact, your decision is likely to repel more readers than it attracts - meaning your spiral will quicken.

It’s not that you’ve hired a conservative voice; it’s that you hired the architect of legalized torture specfically because he’s a hero to your harshest critics. Which, unfortunately, makes everything they ever said about the spinelessness of the “MSM” seem all too true.