On the eve of adding a paywall: Chicago Tribune endorses Obama again

Less than a week before installing a paywall on its web site, the Chicago Tribune endorsed Barack Obama for reelection. Its parent company, the Tribune Company, has been under bankruptcy protection for nearly four years--which reminds me, companies that go under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection don't fire all of their workers and liquidate their assets. Are you reading this, General Motors and Chrysler? Are you reading this Obama? Tribune?

The Trib's endorsement is all about the money--as it was in 2008 when, as it is now, the paper was struggling to hang on to every paid subscriber possible.

From that endorsement:

There was little reason to think the rookie president elected that November would be more than a bystander as those dominoes toppled. But that rookie, Barack Obama, with quick study and sure gait, led an administration effort to stabilize the U.S. economy. Through that long passage, still incomplete, Obama often has exhibited pragmatism when conventional liberal responses -- As for me, I blame Wall Street! -- wouldn't have surprised any among us.

That record of pragmatism and focus in a moment of crisis, not his moves in any one policy realm, should help voters decide whether Obama spends the next four years gazing from a window at the Washington Monument -- or reading and writing at his red-brick manse in sweet home Chicago.

In addition to President Bush, Obama did blame Wall Street for the economic mess--remember his straw man railing against "fat cats?" And the first effort to rescue the economy, flawed yes, came from President Bush, I must remind the Trib.

Obama's policies--pro-crony capitalism, anti-reliable energy, pro-red tape (Dodd-Frank!), and yes, that jobs-killer ObamaCare--have smothered our recovery from the 2008 collapse.

I don't think the Trib wants to anger their core audience of misguided Chicagoans who have been programmed by unionized teachers, Chicago Machine bureaucrats, and some of the Tribune's columnists, to believe that Republicans are evil.

My subscription to the Tribune was cancelled years ago.

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