WTF, MSM?

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Well, it has happened again. Forum Communications, a Fargo based company that owns 22 MN newspapers has endorsed Coleman and McCain. Sadly, these endorsements are only evidence of the rising irrelevance of the current corporate structure/strategy/ethos of print media. Get a load of what passes for editorial logic in the age of media conglomerations:

John McCain is not the perfect presidential candidate.
But he’s a better choice than Barack Obama.
-Forum Communication endorsement as printed in the Stillwater Courier, October 22, 2008

Flawless.

Let’s deconstruct Forum’s arguments for endorsing these candidates. The following is a bullet point list of the main issues given for each.

McCain

* Embodies traditional conservative values
* Streak of independence
* Experience
* Obama has socialistic platform with unlimited government control
* Obama would plunge the country into an economic hole
* Obama not jingoistic enough
* McCain will be a check to a Democratically controlled Congress

Coleman

* Coleman will be better able to work across the aisle
* Franken is hard-edged liberal
* He was there for MN when the 35W bridge collapsed
* He voted in favor of the bailout
* He is not a Bushie; He voted against ANWR drilling and the farm bill
* Franken will shame the state like Ventura did

Any level of thought past the purely partisan would show that all of these arguments are red herrings. Forum Communications is simply giving credit to McCain and Coleman for having the tools to get us out of the situation they put us in.

The entire argument for endorsement is a farce. Are we not already in an economic hole? Did Coleman go above and beyond by securing Federal funding for the 35W bridge or was he just doing his job?

Not to say that Obama is entirely blameless nor has all of the answers, but to call him a socialist when Coleman and McCain presided over and supported the greatest period of government expansion since FDR is an insult to their readers. Moreover, they both recently pushed for the US government to take equity stakes in private companies as a part of the economic bailout. If that isn’t socialism, then I have an efficient private health insurance plan to sell ya.

There are many reasons Forum had to endorse Coleman and Franken. And I understand it’s a scary time for print media and they are looking for a predictable hand at the till. Sadly, however, I don’t think any of these reasons are based on coherent logic or sense of progress. The Forum Communications endorsements were based on short-sighted fear.