In Which I Envision The WaPost Obama Endorsement

Sometime in very late October or early November, the editorial board of the Washington Post will sit down and decide who the paper should endorse for President.  Their endorsement of President Obama will be written in a manner suggesting that his opponent may actually have had a chance of earning the endorsement; that the Board underwent a tortuous process in trying to decide between these two men, and that there cannot possibly be even a hint of media bias in their selection. 

Their endorsement of President Obama will be delivered in almost a tone of regret, that he has not lived up to his promise, that he hasn't made things better, that he poorly prioritized his administration's plans, that he has not delivered on Hope and Change, that he made reckless promises about job growth that he has not delivered upon, that he has alienated our ally in Israel without any real change in affection in the Islamic world, that he has not bravely tackled the systemic entitlement issues that underpin our debt crisis, that he failed to act on a sweeping deal with Speaker Boehner that he had in his hand to address our out of balance ledger.  The Post will criticize him for the sloppy manner in which stimulus dollars were distributed to the noble green energy industry, it will point out the fact that Obamacare does not effectively address the rising cost of healthcare to the 85% of Americans who already had it, it will question the much ballyhooed "open-ness" of the Administration and it will chide the President for his ducking of the White House press pool in favor of lesser, more pliant media outlets (dare it mention "The Pimp with the Limp"?).

After laying down a Declaration of Independence-worthy bill of indictments against the President, one which the average reader would rationally conclude eliminated the President from the competition,  the Post will then have to reveal to us its great disappointment that the Republican was not more worthy of its endorsement.  It will wistfully suggest that it could have heartily endorsed "Governor (of MA) Romney", but that this Candidate for President Romney had simply gone too far over to the right.  It will likely raise the canard that Ronald Reagan could not be nominated in this Republican Party, the old one having been so much more preferable to the Board (except when Reagan was actually governing the country). Nor will it speak to the unlikelihood of that great tax-cutter JFK being nominated by this tax crazy bunch.  It will commend him for the good sense he showed in the Massachusetts healthcare plan and question his judgment in his opposition to imposing it on the rest of America.  It will decry his position on a "woman's right to choose", even when that right includes downright infanticide.  It will accuse him of a lack of specificity in his economic, fiscal, growth, tax and jobs plans, contrasting them with the positions the Administration has taken while it governed, rather than the equally vague positions taken by candidate Obama in 2008.  It will sadly wonder why the Governor's father released 12 years worth of tax returns, while he only released two.  The Washington Post will create in the mind of the reader the notion of "what could have been", if only Romney had been more....well....like a Democrat. 

The paper will conclude its endorsement of President Obama with stern warnings and hectoring, making sure EVERYONE knows it isn't in the tank for Obama.  It will make dire warnings about the state of our fiscal health and the responsibility of the President to work with Congress to fix it.  It will predict decline, and insolvency if we do not address things in a "balanced" way, to include having the "rich" pay their "fair share". 

And when the endorsement is complete, they will not have thanked me for writing it for them.