Given that Trump regularly accuses, without evidence, bezos of doing this, and given the generally high respect paid to wapo among non-conservatives, I guess my question is now - despite Appeal to Tradition, why would bezos sacrifice the respectability of wapo to turn it into a favorable rag?

Basically, I don't think he could get away with stirring his fingers around in wapo (which it's reported he currently doesn't do) without far more negative consequences than positive.