This week we saw a courageous newspaper in the Chicago Tribune, which for the first time in its history decided not to endorse a Republican, but to endorse Barack Obama. They made the choice based on the facts of the case, they claim. As I note here, the Tribune Editorial Board notes John McCain’s poor decision-making skills as a strong reason for endorsing Obama, the choice of Sarah Palin among them. I was impressed, having been a Tribune reader for well over 20 years. I am remarkably unimpressed this morning by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s endorsement decision.

Instead of making a firm decision to present to its readers, as the Chicago Tribune did, the Philadelphia Inquirer decided to waffle. They published a “dissent” which supports John McCain just under the majority Editorial Board view that Barack Obama is the best choice for President. Oh, they don’t call this a waffle, nor even an endorsement of the minority on the Editorial Board, a minority perhaps led by GOP publisher Brian Tierney. In their explanation of this unprecedented move of “fairness,” they say that they ran a dissenting editorial endorsement to present why someone would back McCain. Here’s their words from the article by Tony Graham of the Inquirer:

In this case, Jackson said, “we felt there are attributes about John McCain that members of the board wanted presented to the reader in a positive way.”

All but one member of the board, which includes publisher Brian P. Tierney, took part in the endorsement discussions.

Board members could not remember The Inquirer’s endorsing a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon, Jackson said.

He said the dissenting view should help counter the public impression that the Editorial Board walked “in lockstep” on political issues.

But he cautioned against reading too much into the purpose of the counterpoint.

“It is a recitation of why someone might vote for John McCain,” Jackson said. “It is not an endorsement. There’s only one endorsement on that page.”

OK, let’s take that apart. First we have a sentence where Jackson asserts there are positive reasons for people to vote for Mr. McCain. I assume they would be included in the dissenting endorsement. Maybe these are those words? From the dissenting Inquirer endorsement for McCain:

Ask people to describe McCain and the first response often is, “He’s honest.” What you see is what you get. There are no mysterious associations to dance around. No 20-year attendance of a church whose pastor preached anti-American sermons. No serving on an education reform panel with a domestic terrorist. No financial support from a convicted felon. No ties to a group currently under investigation for possible voter-registration fraud.

And McCain didn’t hire as a strategist David Axelrod, who helped lead Mayor John Street’s race-baiting reelection campaign.

OK, to be fair the dissenting opinion that endorses John McCain talks glowingly of his military service, failing to say why that qualifies him for the Presidency. It also glowingly talks about John McCain and how he “talks straight” with the people, failing to mention his erratic temper and language that would shock many “Joe Sixpacks” out there. No mention of “temperament” in the dissent, though temperament was brought up by Romney in the primaries. As to this being all about positive reasons for people to support McCain, as Harold Jackson notes, those reasons must include the negative campaigning going on now, as they include Reverend Wright, William Ayers, and Tony Rezko — the latter referenced as McCain not receiving financial support from a convicted felon (Oh how easily Brian Tierney forgets Charles Keating, G. Gordon Liddy, et. al, convicted felons who have helped John McCain along the way).

Brian Tierney? I dare challenge the Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board and suggest this dissenting opinion was written by the owner of the company instead of as they say, as a fleshing out of the reasons one might support McCain? It’s that last line I quoted that’s the giveaway to Brian Tierney’s involvement in this stupid decision by the Philadelphia Inquirer to seem “fair” in its endorsement for President this year. The other lines in that dissent that was supposed to be about positive reasons to vote for McCain seemingly endorse the negative attacks on Barack Obama. The last line, this little one sentence paragraph, doesn’t fit, though it does attack Obama:

And McCain didn’t hire as a strategist David Axelrod, who helped lead Mayor John Street’s race-baiting reelection campaign.

What the heck is the Philadelphia Mayoral election in 2003 doing in the discussion of John McCain’s positives? It is clear to those of us who know Philadelphia politics. It is all about the bitterness of Brian Tierney, who ran Republican Sam Katz’s campaign that year against John Street. (As an aside, I should disclose I was a Sam Katz supporter in both the 1999 and 2003 elections.) Brian Tierney evidently has a long, long memory, and that election in 2003 was one in which he thought he could help transform Philadelphia from Democratic towards being Republican. His guy Sam Katz had a great story, was fiscally responsible, and was popular in Philly, and running against John Street, who many thought, and still think was unqualified for the job. I was among them. Brian Tierney, in the end, did not win that election, based in part because David Axelrod advised the Street campaign to rile up the African American community on the issue of race. But let’s make sure to note that is ancient history. And it is history that not one media outlet in the country has counted as important in this election, except the Inquirer “dissent,” where Brian Tierney is owner and had a deeply personal stake in that 2003 election.

It is time for the Philadelphia Inquirer and media in general to stop the pretense of trying to be fair. Or if they are “fair,” as they try to be here as they outline the legitimate positive case for John McCain, lay off the ugly negatives. also, it is time for the Philadelphia Inquirer to be up front about the influence of Brian Tierney. They say he has no defining role on editorial policies at the Inquirer, but the line about Axelrod and Street in this editorial is hard to read any other way than as an expression of Brian Tierney’s sour grapes from five years ago.