Chicago Tribune Endorses Barack Obama

A friend of mine sent me a very refreshing link in my weekend morning e-mail.

I like refreshment on the weekends. I work during the week, as most people do, and I like to recharge on weekends in the most optimistic fashion possible.

That's why the link I received to the Chicago Tribune's endorsement of Barack Obama for President fits the refreshing column very nicely. It is not necessarily refreshing that the Tribune has never before endorsed a Democrat for President. However, in this case, I would say that it is about time the editorial board at the Tribune got with the program.

In the Tribune endorsement, there is a proclamation that the Republican Party has "lost its way" and they point to the historical link of the party being the "party of limited government". Very well. It was that promise that attracted me to the party in my otherwise wayward youth.

But the Tribune pointed out that the budget surplus that President George W. Bush inherited from President Clinton has reversed and doubled during his watch into a deficit of nearly half a trillion dollars. Chump change that is not.

John McCain has declared that he will balance the budget even declaring that he will be cutting taxes that will put the squeeze to the budget to the tune of $400 billion.

Gee, John, more power to ya if you can do it. Dubya couldn't do it. But I bet you could. Think of this...ending the war cuts the deficit by almost a third. And if you only cut taxes on families that earn less than a quarter mil, that probably helps, too. Gee, it would suck to be rich under those terms.

The Tribune also had issues about John's choice of running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin.

Let's look at it this way: Ms. Palin is the governor of Alaska, a state with a population just a little over 600, 000 and which is flush in oil money and military bases. I live in Cleveland, Ohio (pop. <450,000), and if you add the population of it's county, Cuyahoga, you have a place that has better than double the population of the entire state of Alaska.

That would mean that the mayor of Cleveland or any of the commissioners for Cuyahoga County would be just as qualified to be a presidential running mate as Ms. Palin if you look at it in terms of population numbers.

And that doesn't factor in to the equation that Ms. Palin doesn't have to deal with some of the all too real issues that the mayor of a large city has to deal with on a daily basis. Crime and drugs are things that are probably just as foreign a concept to Ms. Palin as dealing with China. But they are a very real thing in every large American city, not just inside the Beltway.

The Tribune accuses McCain of "put(ting) his campaign before his country". That, by the way, is the understatement of the year.

To sum up the endorsed Obama candidacy, the words I'd would put here pale in comparison to what the editorial board at the Tribune wrote:

"He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions."

No paragraph could put as succinctly the description of Presidential character as what the Tribune wrote in their endorsement of Barack Obama.

They didn't sugar coat their favor for the former Illinois state senator. They are concerned with his ability to balance the budget as well. But the Chicago Tribune is understandably concerned and troubled with the overall direction of the Republican Party and the overall judgment of its current standard bearer, John McCain.

I applaud the Chicago Tribune for their foresight in their Presidential endorsement, so I have included the link to the op-ed page here so that you can read it for yourself.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/