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.
