Never Assume

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Today is the 65th anniversary of the appearance on the news racks of physical proof of perhaps the most spectacularly bad headline decision ever.

As I have mentioned before, I used to work on newspaper copy desks, and I understand the temptation to write a headline for a story when you already know — or think you know — how it is going to turn out even though it isn't official.

I worked on sports copy desks, and there were often times when Super Bowls or something similar became lopsided early and, even though much of the game had yet to be played, it was clear which team would win. On such occasions, we felt we had extra time to work on our headline, and most of the time we were right.

(I always felt that we held ourselves to somewhat higher standards at those times, given that we had the luxury of time to reflect and come up with just the right headline. I have always been proud of a headline I wrote at the Arkansas Gazette about a college football game that got out of hand early.)

That is one of the biggest differences between writing a sports headline and writing a news headline, I suppose. Most team sports events are rigidly timed. When one team grabs a big lead over another, the game eventually reaches a point when it is no longer possible for the other team to come back. (Baseball is the sole exception to that rule, I guess. In baseball, as Yogi Berra said, it really ain't over until it's over.)

But news doesn't work that way — as the folks at the Chicago Tribune found out on this day in 1948. They probably knew it already, but what happened 65 years ago was a reminder to them and a cautionary tale for the generations of editors to follow.

It was a banner headline about the 1948 presidential election, which was held 65 years ago yesterday. It famously proclaimed "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" in big bold letters on Page 1.

History remembers the 1948 campaign as Harry Truman's "Give 'em hell, Harry" campaign, the greatest political comeback ever. The 1948 election made Truman the patron saint of political lost causes. I can't remember a single political campaign in which the underdog failed to invoke the memory of Truman and his upset win as evidence that anything is possible (regardless of whether the cause was really lost at that point or not).

When I was a journalism student, they told us about the 1948 election and the Tribune headline — and I'm sure it is still this way in most schools — as a reminder never to assume.

Sixty–five years ago, the folks on the Chicago Tribune's copy desk made a huge assumption. They assumed that Tom Dewey, Truman's Republican opponent, would win the election, and it was a reasonable assumption to make. Truman was the incumbent, but he was unpopular. In June 1948, Gallup reported that only 39% of respondents approved of his job performance.

It may have been due, in part, to wishful thinking on the part of the Tribune. It was a Republican–leaning paper and had called Truman a "nincompoop" on its editorial page.

And there is no doubt that still–primitive polling methods played a huge role, too. There were flaws in polling methodology that would be corrected after the election, but the flaws were firmly in place before the voters cast their ballots as the polls persistently predicted Dewey's victory for months. Pollsters were convinced that most voters had made up their minds in September and stopped polling weeks before the election, thus missing a late shift in Truman's favor.

It has been estimated that as many as 14% of voters who originally intended to vote for Dewey decided in those final weeks to vote for Truman or someone else — or not at all.

And part of the reason was due to deadline pressure.

As Tim Jones of the Tribune writes, "a printers' strike ... forced the paper to go to press hours before it normally would." The accelerated deadline forced the managing editor to make the kind of judgment call that no editor wants to make early on an election night. He had to choose a headline for a story that wasn't over when he made the decision — but would be when the readers picked up their papers the next morning.

Obviously, he made the wrong choice. He relied on polling data that was weeks old and made the pollsters his scapegoat — even though he had also depended too much on the judgment of the Tribune's Washington correspondent, who was almost never wrong, as well as the fact that LIFE magazine had just published a picture of Dewey with the caption "the next president of the United States."

It was a huge mistake, but remember, this was in the days before the internet, before cable TV. Heck, TV was still in its infancy in those days, anyway. Few people outside the Chicago area knew of the headline faux pas — until Truman, who was returning to Washington by train, made a stop in St. Louis and was handed a copy of the Tribune with its erroneous headline.

"He had as low an opinion of the Tribune as it did of him," Jones wrote. "Truman held the paper up, and photographers preserved the moment for history."

Bad Craziness

When I was a teenager, I was a fan of the Doonesbury comic strip.

I recall reading a strip once in which the Hunter Thompson–inspired character, Uncle Duke, in a clearly hallucinatory state, slumped behind something and muttered, "Bad craziness," while some sort of bizarre creature hovered over where he had stood in the previous frame.

I don't remember the details — and they aren't important, anyway.

But "bad craziness" is what came to my mind when I heard that gas prices have hit a 28–month high.

That is true in spite of the fact that, as Sandy Shore of the Washington Post reports, "[O]il and gas supplies in the U.S. continue to grow and demand for gas is weak."

It's the same through–the–looking–glass sensation I get when I look at the monthly unemployment report.

Earlier this month, we were told that joblessness went down dramatically. But the number of jobs created was not enough to keep up with the growth of the working–age population.

Mathematically, it doesn't add up — until you realize that only the people who are receiving benefits are counted. People whose benefits have expired aren't being counted anymore. They may still be unemployed — and, in this economy, they probably are — but they aren't being counted.

And bureaucrats can congratulate themselves on lowering the unemployment rate — when, in fact, they have done nothing to lower the unemployment rate.

Bad craziness.

Likewise, it is bad craziness for gas prices to be at their highest level since the fall of 2008.

One would be tempted to blame the unrest in Egypt for the price spike. But, as Shore points out, gas prices have been going up since November — predating the revolt in Egypt (which, nevertheless, has contributed to the regional instability that has traders worried about disruption of production and delivery).

And how's this for news? Gregory Karp of the Chicago Tribune reports that prices "aren't likely to go down anytime soon."

Bad craziness.

The Shifting Political Tides

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A timeless reminder of the wages of arrogance.

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I don't know how much of a role the results of the special election in Massachusetts played in this, but The Rothenberg Political Report moved the Senate seat of incumbent Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas to its "Lean Takeover" category today.

"Given the bent of Independent voters (in the recent Massachusetts special election but also in national surveys), we are increasingly doubtful that the Arkansas Democratic Senator can win another term," says the Report. It gives Lincoln some wiggle room and notes that things can change. We don't yet know the identity of Lincoln's Republican challenger, it observes, and the economy could improve.

"Still, the burden of proof has shifted in our minds, from requiring Republicans to prove that they can defeat Lincoln to requiring Lincoln to show she can win re–election."

Well, I guess that confirms something I wrote yesterday, only a few hours after Scott Brown claimed victory in the special election:

"I'm inclined to think that yesterday's election changes America's political landscape as indisputably as the use of nuclear weapons against Japan changed the world in 1945," I wrote. "Our political world today is not what it was yesterday."

I still believe that, but I don't think a consensus has been reached yet about what this really means. But The Rothenberg Political Report touches on an important part.

It doesn't mention the political world that existed a year ago, when Obama had just taken the oath of office and enjoyed, according to Gallup, a 68% approval rating. In those heady days for Democrats, the skies were blue and so was the political terrain. But things are far different today. Obama's approval rating hovers around 50%, and Democrats have lost the governorships of two states and the Senate seat that was held for nearly five decades by the liberal lion, Ted Kennedy.

The editorial writers at the New York Times, for example, insist that the Massachusetts election was not a verdict on Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, the editorial writers at the Chicago Tribune, while never mentioning the special election, seem to be making implications based on the results in their editorial today. The Tribune, it should be said, is a conservative newspaper, but it broke a 161–year–old tradition when it endorsed Obama in 2008.

And that, I suppose, frees the Tribune to opine about Obama whenever it likes. And however it likes.

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"In his book 'The Audacity of Hope,' Barack Obama had the insight to explain much of his political appeal. 'I serve as a blank screen,' he wrote, 'on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.' That lack of definition proved a big asset in the presidential campaign, allowing him to attract support from liberals who saw Hillary Rodham Clinton as too hawkish, moderates who saw her as too liberal, and independents who saw John McCain as too conservative and too partisan.

"But in his first year in office, the president has had to fill in that screen. And many Americans are disillusioned with the picture that has emerged."

Chicago Tribune

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Meanwhile, the San Diego Union–Tribune thinks what happened on the East Coast could well happen on the West Coast.

"Scott Brown's decisive and historic victory in the U.S. Senate race in the Bay State could be a bad sign for Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer's re–election chances in November," the paper says.

The Union–Tribune, like the city it serves, is politically conservative — so what it says about Boxer should be taken with a grain of salt. But, given the high unemployment and the serious budget problems facing California, it is not inappropriate to think that anti–incumbent fervor could affect Boxer's chances in the fall. Those independent voters get cranky when times are tough, and they lash out at incumbents, whoever they are.

In the past, U.S. News & World Report has had a more conservative reputation than other newsmagazines with which it has been in competition. So it's probably a good idea to keep that in mind when you read anything from that publication.

Even so, Mary Kate Cary says the election in Massachusetts should guide Democrats to the political center. I gather that she is speaking of Democrats in general, not merely the Democrats in Massachusetts. At this point, of course, no one can say whether Democrats like Lincoln or Boxer will run into trouble in November, but if last fall's elections in New Jersey and Virginia — and Tuesday's special election in Massachusetts — tell Democrats anything, it is that there is widespread dissatisfaction in America today. It is not unreasonable to think that it could stretch from sea to shining sea.

Will that lead to a Republican takeover in one or both of the houses of Congress? I don't know, but I presume Cary uses the Clinton presidency as her model for Obama to follow, as many observers are doing. Such thoughts don't necessarily concede control of Congress to the Republicans, but they do imply that Democrats are expected to be dealt a setback in November, as often happens to the party in power in midterm elections. Sometimes the setback is significant. Other times, not so much.

If that happens — and, personally, I believe the Democrats will sustain significant losses this year — Obama, like Clinton, may have to devote most of his time and energy to bolstering his case for a second term. I don't know if the Democrats will lose enough seats to lose their majority status, but I do believe they will lose seats in both houses.

And, in that case, the demands of survival mode will dictate that a more moderate approach will be necessary. It has happened before. In the historical context, fairly recently, in fact.

Think back to before the days of impeachment and the Lewinsky scandal — when the Republicans overwhelmed the Democrats in 1994 and captured control of both houses of Congress. After the election, Bill Clinton moved more to the center, which was the ideological territory he staked out for himself in the 1992 campaign. He seemed to abandon it after taking the oath of office in 1993. After losing majority status in 1994, his party didn't retake Congress for more than 10 years, but Clinton was re–elected in 1996 after repositioning himself.

Perhaps, if Obama moves more to the center now and refocuses his attention on the things people are saying that they are concerned about — like joblessness — he may be able to minimize his party's losses in November.

It's worth a try.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

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Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that inevitably produces conflicting emotions. Wherever you are, you don't have to look far to find examples of people on opposite ends of the spectrum, people who are deliriously happy and people who are despondent.

I've often heard it said that, no matter how bad things are for you, there is always someone who is worse off. And that is true. But it doesn't mean your pain isn't genuine or that you aren't entitled to it.

On this Thanksgiving Eve, there may be much to be thankful for, but there still is a lot of pain in America. Those who are in charge insist on saying that, by traditional yardsticks, the recession is over — yet the unemployment rate is higher than it has been in more than a quarter of a century and many economists are saying it is likely to continue to go up in the first half of 2010. Last Thanksgiving, many Americans probably could not say that they knew anyone who was out of work. But, with more than 8 million jobs lost since the recession began, my guess is that far more are personally touched by joblessness this year.

I think I speak with a certain amount of authority when I say that most of the unemployed understand that the recession began nearly two years ago — and anyone who comprehends chronology knows that Barack Obama had not yet been elected president at that time.

Recently, I read an article in which the author said that (a) the recession was George W. Bush's fault and (b) it is too early to reach any conclusions about Obama. My response to that is (a) I don't dispute the fact that Bush was president in December 2007, but, even though I am not an economist, I am inclined to believe that a recession as severe as this one is the result of many decisions made by leaders from both parties, and (b) it may not seem fair to draw a conclusion about Obama, but that is the nature of the political calendar. Ready or not, the midterm election season is upon us and the economy is front and center.

I have been saying all year that job creation needed to be the focal point of the administration if it wanted to minimize its losses in the midterms, but Democrats preferred to blame Bush and devote their efforts to other matters. I cannot speak for everyone, of course, but recent public opinion surveys suggest to me that, however people may feel about who deserves the blame for the poor economy, a majority of Americans is running out of patience for the president to fix it. In their eyes, Obama has not done what he was elected to do, even if he thinks that calling for a "jobs summit" next month is (however belatedly) addressing the problem.

Take the stimulus package that was passed back in February. Congressional Democrats insisted, at the time, that it would create jobs almost immediately, but this week a Chicago Tribune editorial called that "a snow job."

I have to think that a newspaper that serves a city like Chicago knows something about snow. And the Tribune makes a valid point about claims of jobs that have been "created or saved" by the stimulus. Especially in places that don't exist — like the 15th House District in Arizona — except at the government's web site, Recovery.gov.

Well, when the national unemployment rate is in double digits, that's the kind of scrutiny the party in power must expect. Like it or not.

While many Obama supporters may dismiss opinions expressed in the Tribune as the rantings of a conservative paper, it is worth remembering that the Tribune endorsed Obama's candidacy last year, the first time it had endorsed a Democrat in 161 years.

And that's a verifiable number — unlike the claims of jobs that have been "created or saved" by the stimulus.

Well, whether you have been personally affected by the recession or not, have a happy Thanksgiving.

Here's hoping that, next year, there are verifiable job gains for which we can be truly thankful.

Patriotism

I must possess an odd brand of patriotism. I never thought I did when I was growing up, but now, in the early years of the 21st century, it has become increasingly clear to me.

Maybe my mind processes things in ways that others do not.

A few years ago, I heard arguments from Republicans that suggested I wasn't supporting the troops if I wasn't supporting the war in Iraq — and, therefore, I wasn't patriotic.

George W. Bush and the Republicans set themselves up for criticism when they smugly and self–assuredly told Americans that there were stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and they were aimed at America. It was easy to frighten Americans in those days. The September 11 attacks were still a fresh memory.

But it never was that simple for me.

My counter–argument was that I was supporting the troops, that it was possible to support the troops and oppose the policy they were required to carry out.

It is the same — in my mind — as a law that is passed by the state legislature. I may not agree with that law. In fact, there may be some in law enforcement who do not agree with the law. But it is their job to enforce the law.

Policy makers and policy enforcers are rarely, if ever, the same people.

For a long time, that attitude seemed rare, almost nonexistent, but in the last couple of years, I have seen more and more people who feel that way.

Barack Obama's trip to Copenhagen last week to lobby — unsuccessfully — for the 2016 Olympics to come to Chicago has produced the flip side to the patriotism argument.

"Whenever President Obama has traveled overseas and offered pointed and direct assessments of the United States, some of them critical, Republicans have ripped him for criticizing America, saying a president should always defend the United States," writes Roland Martin for CNN.com.

"So I want to hear the explanation by these so–called patriots of their giddy behavior over the United States losing the 2016 Olympic Games."

It is a valid complaint, and it is one to which I tend to feel vulnerable — to a degree.

But the facts are more complicated.

For starters, I am not a Republican, but one does not have to be a Republican to disagree with a Democratic president. I know independents and Democrats who did not think Obama should make the trip to Copenhagen, and I am one of them.

Yes, I have criticized Obama when I felt he made mistakes. But I have never joined in the chorus that has accused him of being anti–America. And I don't believe anyone who wants to bring the Olympics to America can be anti–America.

I've never really understood the anti–America argument. I am not so cynical that I believe someone who hates this country could run for its highest office, fool a majority of its adults and be elected to lead it when his real objective was to destroy it.

Americans on both sides of the political spectrum can be quite superficial, but most aren't that gullible that they would willingly hand over power to a smooth–talking shyster or truly believe others had done so. Are they?

Having said that, yes, I was critical of the decision to go to Copenhagen. But I didn't mind if Chicago was awarded the Olympics for 2016, and I was not glad Chicago lost its bid to host the Olympics. I simply felt Obama had more important things to do right here.

The decision to go to Copenhagen has set off a firestorm of sorts. In Commentary, Jennifer Rubin wrote that Obama received a lesson in the "limits of egomania." Clarence Page observed, in the Chicago Tribune, that Obama's "magic" has its restrictions. For others, like Edward Luce of Financial Times, the fruitless trip breathed new life into questions about Chicago cronyism.

Clearly, there are many ways to look at this. And I am inclined to think Martin is right when he urges those who have celebrated the loss as Obama's loss to "turn in your flag lapel pins and stop boasting of being so patriotic." It was a loss for America.

But Obama set himself up for all this — in the exasperatingly casual way that he so often does. And that may be the thing about him that many Americans find refreshing. He doesn't do things in the typically presidential way.

But not everyone finds that reassuring. In fact, some were alarmed that Obama wasn't content to delegate the authority for that task to his wife and remain in Washington while the unemployment rate went up and his health care plan became watered down faster than the Titanic.

Obama became president during the greatest economic crisis this country has faced in three–quarters of a century. A president can't choose the conditions that exist when he takes office, but he can choose how he will respond to them.

Filling out his NCAA brackets or making the rounds of the late night talk shows or presiding over a couple of beers and a "teachable moment" or traveling to Copenhagen may seem worthwhile, but they lack the urgency of rising unemployment. At some point, a president must decide what his priority will be.

After that, worthwhile (but lesser) goals must be turned over to others.

I believed last week — and I believe today — that Obama needed to make joblessness his priority.

Barack to the Future

Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune combines some appropriate history lessons in today's column, which starts by asking, "How many of you are going to miss the George W. Bush years? Can I see a show of hands?"

Appropriately, he observes that Bush, in his farewell address last week, quoted Thomas Jefferson: "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."

Of course, in Jefferson's day, the republic was still new. Jefferson was only the third president. Bush came along 40 presidencies and 200 years later. It wouldn't surprise me if a majority of Americans feel like the country has aged another 200 years in Bush's eight-year tenure.

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if Bush really feels that way about the future and the past. He didn't seem to have much regard for history during his presidency.

But Page clearly does.

"[T]here is a lot that Obama can learn from Bush's past," Page writes, "if only to avoid taking the sort of plunge that Bush's approval ratings took from the great heights he achieved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."

But Page's Tribune colleague Patrick T. Reardon offers a common-sense "reality reminder." At one point or another, he says, everyone, even Obama's supporters, will be "upset by or turned off by something he'll do over the next four years." It is unavoidable, really.

As Abe Lincoln might say, you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all the people all the time.

They didn't assess presidential approval ratings in Lincoln's day, but his re-election wasn't assured until the tide had clearly turned in the Civil War. Only then did the voters of the North endorse his candidacy.

Lincoln received 55% of the vote and carried 21 of 24 states in the 1864 election. He owed much of his success to his willingness to listen to everyone and make the best decisions he could make with the future of the nation hanging in the balance.

He did not take a rigid stance. He did not defy his critics with a "my way or the highway" attitude. There were times when Lincoln had to follow policies that were different from what he preferred, but he did so with the best interests of the nation in mind.

Obama will have to do that at times.

And there were times when Lincoln made controversial decisions.

"The novelty of this guy with the interesting life story will wear off," Reardon writes. "He'll be just another president — like the 43 who preceded him. We'll judge him on what he does."

Fair enough. It seems like it's taking long enough to get on with it, though, like that nine-hour train ride from Philadelphia to Washington yesterday.

Let's get started with the future.

The Final Weekend

There are a few things worth contemplating as we begin the final weekend of the 2008 presidential campaign.

• For openers, it was on the Friday before the election in 2004 that a taped message from Osama bin Laden was played on Al-Jazeera.
  
  In that message, bin Laden acknowledged his culpability in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks for the first time.
  
  Many political observers sensed a shift in voter attitudes that weekend, culminating in George W. Bush's re-election the next week.
  
  Some speculated that bin Laden timed the release of the tape in an attempt to influence the outcome of the election.
  
  Is bin Laden planning something similar this weekend?


• Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune has been writing this week about his "08 reasons" why, first, John McCain would win and then, yesterday, why Barack Obama would win.
  
  His final reason why Obama will win — Obama’s been lucky — ties in with what I just mentioned.
  
  It's true that Obama has been lucky in this campaign, as Zorn writes.
  

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  "Things have been relatively quiet all year on the terror and national security fronts — McCain’s strengths. And the major crisis of the campaign season — the economic meltdown — not only played into one of Obama’s perceived strong suits, it also caused McCain to appear impulsive and indecisive in the face of a sudden challenge."
  
  Eric Zorn
  Chicago Tribune

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  Zorn says he thinks Obama's luck will hold through the election.
  
  I hope he's right — for all our sakes.
  
  But, even though he's been mostly quiet the last couple of years, I expect bin Laden to make some noise after the next president takes office.
  
  Whether he will choose to remain quiet through the election remains a mystery to be resolved.


• At this point, it appears virtually certain that Obama will receive more newspaper endorsements than McCain.
  
  In most previous elections, Republicans have received more endorsements than Democrats — in spite of their protestations of a "liberal bias."
  
  But, in some exceptional elections, when the "Republican brand" has taken a beating, the Democrat wins more newspaper endorsements than the Republican.
  
  That appears to be the case in 2008. Editor & Publisher reports that, as of Thursday, Obama held more than a 2-to-1 advantage over McCain in endorsements.
  
  And many of Obama's endorsements have come from large metropolitan newspapers while the majority of McCain's endorsements have come from small-town newspapers.
  
  That means, as E&P observes, that Obama's endorsements represent a circulation of more than 21 million while McCain's endorsements represent a circulation of about 7 million — roughly a 3-to-1 advantage.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

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"The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics."

Chicago Tribune

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Speculation is running wild about whether former Secretary of State Colin Powell will issue an endorsement of one of the presidential candidates when he appears on NBC's "Meet the Press" tomorrow.

The speculation has spread and now includes foreign media as well as domestic.

Philip Sherwell of The Telegraph of London sounds like Tevye from "Fiddler on the Roof" as he leaps from one conclusion to the other.

"On the other hand ... "

To illustrate what I mean, Sherwell begins his article by observing "Colin Powell ... is expected to denounce 'ugly' personal attacks on Barack Obama and may endorse the Democrat for the nation's top job."

Sherwell then quotes Powell's former chief of staff as saying that Powell has bemoaned the "vitriol, bile and prejudice" in the campaign and "I'd expect him to talk about it."

But Sherwell also points out that Powell's ex-aide describes him as a "loyal soldier who owes a lot to some people in the Republican Party," which he concedes is "a factor that could mitigate against an endorsement by a man not prone to gesture politics."

In short, Sherwell speculates that a Powell endorsement of Obama is a definite maybe.

(While reading Sherwell's article, I was almost disappointed that I didn't hear a chorus singing, "Find me a find, catch me a catch ...")

There are a few genuine endorsements to talk about today.

• Perhaps the most significant comes from the Chicago Tribune.
  
  It may not seem especially surprising that the fifth-largest newspaper in the United States (with a circulation of nearly 1 million), which happens to serve the city where Obama makes his home, has endorsed the Democratic nominee.
  
  Until you realize that this is the first time in its 161-year history that the conservative Tribune has endorsed a Democrat for president.
  
  The paper was a strong advocate of the abolition of slavery, and it supported favorite son Abraham Lincoln when he sought the presidency in 1860. But it hasn't always endorsed Illinois politicians who ran for the nation's highest office. It did not support Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson when he ran against Republican Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.
  
  Supporting a Democratic presidential nominee is a new experience for the Tribune, but it doesn't always endorse the Republican nominee, either, as its editorial points out — although the examples it cites are endorsement editorials that were written by journalists several generations removed from the current editorial staff.
  
  In 1912, when former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt sought to return to the White House as the Progressive Party's candidate, the Tribune backed Roosevelt.
  
  And, in 1872, instead of supporting Republican President Ulysses S. Grant's bid for re-election, it endorsed the editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley (at left), who ran as a Liberal Republican but was endorsed by the Democratic Party.
  
  Last spring, the Tribune endorsed both Obama and McCain in their parties' primaries, but the Tribune admits that it is "hard to figure John McCain these days" and asserts that he "failed in his most important executive decision" — when he picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate.
  
  "Give him credit for choosing a female running mate," writes the Tribune, "but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. ... McCain put his campaign before his country."
  
  In contrast, says the Tribune, "Obama chose a more experienced and more thoughtful running mate — he put governing before politicking."


• In comparison, I guess, the other two high-profile newspaper endorsements are neither surprising nor particularly historic.
  
  The Washington Post, for example, has a track record of supporting Democrats — although, for many years, late publisher Katharine Graham insisted on a policy of not endorsing presidential nominees.
  
  Since at least 2000, however, the Post has been endorsing presidential candidates — but, while conservatives often mention the Post and the New York Times as the joint Eastern apex of the so-called "liberal media bias" in American journalism, the truth is that the Post has endorsed some Republicans and taken conservative positions on some issues.
  
  But it lives up to expectations in its endorsement of Obama.
  
  "There are few public figures we have respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain," writes the Post, shedding crocodile tears. "Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president."
  
  The Post also uses Palin as a scapegoat, saying "The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president."
  
  But, while she may be convenient for that role, that doesn't mean the Post might have endorsed McCain if he had chosen someone else for his ticket.
  
  And the Post recites the qualities it believes Obama possesses that make him the best choice. "He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment."


• In the eyes of its modern-day readers, the Los Angeles Times follows a liberal editorial policy, but it was not always so.
  
  When I wrote a paper in graduate school on the 1932 election (to which I referred in this blog last month), I studied the Times' coverage of the campaign — and the Times' editorial policies clearly were different in those days.
  
  Students of history know 1932 was the year Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated President Herbert Hoover in a landslide. On Election Day, the Times' front page ran an item in a box above the fold with a headline advising readers "Where to Vote For Hoover."
  
  Most Angelenos (like most Americans) did not follow the Times' recommendation when they went to their polling places.
  
  Times have changed.
  
  And one of the things that has changed is the Times' long-standing ban on endorsing presidential candidates. The newspaper stopped endorsing presidential candidates during the Nixon presidency but is resuming the practice this year.
  
  Today's Los Angeles Times says it endorses Obama "without hesitation."
  
  And recent voting history suggests that California will be in the Democratic column in November.
  
  It appears likely that, with its first presidential endorsement in nearly 40 years, the Times will achieve an electoral symmetry with its readers in 2008 that it wasn't able to achieve three-quarters of a century ago.
  
  Palin, once again, takes the hit for the Republicans. The Times writes that the decision was "irresponsible ... [It] calls into question just what kind of thinking — if that's the appropriate word — would drive the White House in a McCain presidency."
  
  And the Times isn't bashful about borrowing the poetic style of its preferred candidate. Obama, the Times writes, "represents the nation as it is and as it aspires to be."

I don't know if Powell will endorse anyone tomorrow or not, but I do know there will be legitimate endorsements published in the nation's newspapers in the next couple of weeks.

Whether the so-called "liberal media bias" exists, the truth is — as statistics clearly show — that the majority of newspapers that endorse presidential candidates have tended to endorse Republicans over the years.

In the last half century, the exceptions to that rule have occurred when the Republican candidate was considered to be too extreme (1964) or out of touch with the public while presiding over a recession (1992).

Thus far in the 2008 general election campaign, Obama leads in newspaper endorsements by about a 3-to-1 margin. Obama also has been endorsed by a few magazines — The New Yorker, Vibe, Rolling Stone and Esquire.

But only 82 newspapers have endorsed a candidate so far, according to Editor & Publisher. More than 400 newspapers endorsed a candidate in 2004.

Clearly, many, many newspapers that usually endorse a presidential candidate have not done so yet.

Perhaps they're waiting to focus their attention — as political observers tell us the voting public does — after the World Series.

More Responses to Obama's Choice

Today is the day after Joe Biden was introduced to the American public as the running mate on the Democratic ticket. And responses continue to pour in.

• Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen write, in Politico, that Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate tells us five things about the presumptive presidential nominee:
  
  
  1. He's fixing for a fight.
  
  
  2. He's a lot more conventional than advertised.
  
  
  3. He’s insecure about security.
  
  
  4. He’s more worried about Lunchbox Joe than Bubba.
  
  
  5. He doesn't hold a grudge — or at least he doesn't let it get in the way.
  
  I won't elaborate on the points. The post is short. I recommend that all my readers take a few minutes to read it for themselves.


• In what is sure to become familiar fare (for those who watch the Democratic convention this week, it will be familiar by the time Biden gives his acceptance speech), the Washington Post writes in glowing terms of Biden's life of "comebacks" of which the latest is his emergence as Obama's running mate after dropping out of the presidential race in the wake of an ignominious loss in Iowa.
  
  "Setbacks are followed by successes" in Biden's life and career, write Eli Saslow and Amy Goldstein in the Post, "and the cycle repeats. A tragic car accident, brain aneurysms, a plagiarism scandal, two failed presidential runs — nothing has permanently derailed him."
  
  
• But the response in the Washington Post hasn't been uniformly enthusiastic.
  
  In a group asssessment of the choice, Ed Rogers (former White House staffer under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush) says there are three reasons that Republicans should be glad Biden was the choice:
  
  
  1. Biden is not "another lightweight left-wing snob."
     
     "Everyone who cares about good government and serious politics can imagine him as president," Rogers says, "unlike Obama."
  
  
  2. "Biden has no following in a key state or among any particular voter group that will help Obama appeal to the center, nor does Biden reinforce Obama's appeal as an agent of change."
  
  
  3. "On any given day, there is a good chance that he will say something that could destroy the Democratic ticket or at least hurt its chances in November."
  
  Rogers says that, as a McCain supporter, he is "relieved and encouraged by the Biden selection."

(Pardon a personal note here: There is, I believe, something to be said about the fact that the Congress is, in part, to blame for the giant sucking sound we hear, of American lives and treasure being lost in Iraq. Congress has been the enabler of problematic behavior in this dysfunctional relationship that has existed between Congress and the Bush administration.

(But, as Congress has continued to authorize exorbitant defense spending, even as the economy has soured, are any of the presumptive nominees in a position to cast any stones?)

In the same assessment piece, Rutgers University history professor David Greenberg says, "Obama blew it." Greenberg says Obama's "over-the-top coyness damages him three ways —"


1. "First, it feeds the idea that he's a narcissist."


2. "Second, after so much hype, the choice could only disappoint. And really, we waited three months for Joe Biden?"


3. "Third, the protracted process short-sightedly allowed Hillary Clinton's name to re-enter the veepstakes — a move bound to further alienate her backers when she wasn't selected."
   
   We might get an idea how Hillary's supporters feel about the selection process when, on Wednesday, she is reportedly going to tell her delegates that they are free to vote for Obama on the first ballot. Will they still vote for Hillary? Will there be a floor demonstration?
   
   Stay tuned.


• Elizabeth Holmes writes, in the Wall Street Journal, that Biden and McCain share "striking similarities."
  
  "In their roughly 57 combined years in the U.S. Senate, Sen. McCain and Sen. Biden have forged much the same path," Holmes writes. "The pair has each earned a reputation for a quick tongue and become outspoken on foreign policy."


• The sub-headline on the article by Mike Dorning and James Oliphant in the Chicago Tribune summed up what the Obama camp appears to want voters to see when they look at the Obama-Biden ticket: "Experience. Foreign policy chops. Fists for a political fight. And, if Obama's lucky, an appeal to white working-class voters."


• Frankly, I expected to read something about the selection in Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times this morning.
  
  But she seems to be too busy obsessing over John McCain's "dalliances that caused his first marriage to fall apart after he came back from his stint as a P.O.W. in Vietnam" — and the "powerful get-out-of-jail-free card McCain had earned by not getting out of jail free."
  
  Although the article was written by someone who was adamantly anti-Hillary during the primaries, the argument sounds like it could have been fashioned by a feminist Clinton supporter in a general election campaign against McCain. It doesn't really seem like a plausible complaint coming from an Obama backer.
  
  Presumably, this is in response to the subject that was raised by the revelations in recent weeks about John Edwards' affair — although Edwards is never mentioned in Dowd's column today.
  
  And Edwards only appeared to threaten Obama's run to the nomination briefly — and in a marginal sort of way, at that, after finishing a fairly distant second to him in the Iowa caucus on January 3. In fact, Edwards found himself competing with Clinton for second place that night. When he came in far behind both Obama and Clinton the next week in New Hampshire, Edwards prepared to throw in the towel.
  
  Perhaps Dowd will have something to say about Biden in her next regularly scheduled column — which presumably will be Wednesday, the day Biden is supposed to accept the nomination.


• Dowd's colleague, Frank Rich, doesn't mention the running mate, either — except tangentially. But he may have provided a hint of what may be to come when the Democrats convene this week in Denver.
  
  "Change We Can Believe In" was an effective slogan during the Democrats' "familial brawl," Rich says in the New York Times, but now the opponents are McCain and the Republican Party. The message must be blunt.
  
  So it's time, Rich says, to put to rest "Change We Can Believe In" in favor of something like "Change Before It’s Too Late."
  
  If so, perhaps that puts the Biden selection into its proper perspective.

If that doesn't do the trick, here's something that might.

Yesterday, I wrote that the selection "was made with no apparent consideration given to the effect it might have on the electorate in November."

But Dan Balz raises a point in the Washington Post that I hadn't thought of.

"The die may have been cast for Biden ... when Russian forces invaded Georgia this month," Balz writes. "Until then, Obama may have believed he had more latitude in his choice, that he could worry less about dealing with his perceived weaknesses and instead pick a running mate who would more clearly buttress the change and generational messages at the heart of his candidacy.

"Once the tanks rolled, the weight of evidence shifted toward someone who would raise no questions in the area of national security. ... Among those under serious consideration, Biden, 65, was at the top on national security credentials."

In that Washington Post assessment piece I mentioned earlier, Todd Harris, a former McCain spokesman, refers to the Russia-Georgia clash and writes that Biden "brings decades of foreign policy experience to the ticket — and more than a little baggage."

Another example of how unforeseen events have the power to move campaigns in unexpected ways.