Posted by
Mike Bates on Thursday, May 15, 2008 3:11:04 PM
The Nation's Campaign '08 blog features an entry by John Nichols on the endorsement of Barack Obama by John Edwards, "Obama-Backing Edwards Elbows Aside Clinton."
One observation was of particular interest:
No one missed the fact that Barack Obama and John
Edwards looked right together. "They looked fantastic together," gushed
Jill Zuckman, the Chicago Tribune's able political writer. "They looked
like a ticket."
Ms. Zuckman is a Chicago Tribune national correspondent and her
gushy enthusiasm may strike readers as something less than what would
be be expected from an unbiased, detached reporter. Although it's not
the first time Ms. Zuckman's conveyed her appreciation for the combo.
In her June 28, 2007 dispatch, "Fighting the 'Who?' factor -
Candidates considered outside the top tier struggle to get even a
once-over from voters," she writes of:
Obama, an electrifying orator and the most formidable
African-American presidential hopeful in history; and former Sen. John
Edwards of North Carolina, a handsome Southerner and his party's most
recent vice presidential nominee.
Certainly Barry Obama gives good teleprompter, but I don't know that
qualifies him as an electrifying orator. He sometimes looks as though
he's viewing a tennis match. And John Edwards might be a handsome
Southerner, but would the Chicago Tribune's national correspondent ever
refer to Hillary Clinton as a beautiful Midwesterner? I mean, if that
were in fact the case. I doubt it, Sweetie.
Now that Ms. Zuckman has said how fantastic Obama and Edwards look
together, it'll be interesting to see how objectively she reports on
them in the future.