When this fall the Tribune endorsed Governor Rauner for reelection, it was being true to itself. It’s a Republican paper. Over the years, as the Trib endorsed Republicans I had no intention of voting for (and a few I did), I came to understand how it saw its duty: it would make the best case it could make for the GOP candidate for high office—a case usually better than the candidate made for him—or herself—and readers could take it or leave it.
Readers (and more nonreaders) would mutter Godalmighty! at some of these endorsements. I used to be one of them, but I stopped. The Tribune knew what it was. I did join in the general ridicule two years ago when the Trib—unwilling to endorse Hillary Clinton for president and unable to endorse Donald Trump—put its editorial page behind Gary Johnson, the Libertarian. But that was the Tribune being true to itself in its fashion.
Today we consider the alternative. The editorial page of the Thursday Sun-Times observed that this time around “we endorsed all Democrats in 12 Chicago-area races for Congress. We can’t remember the last time we’ve done that.”
Just two years ago, the editorial page went on, “we endorsed [Randy] Hultgren in the 14th District . . . and we might have endorsed [Peter] Roskam in the 6th . . . had he bothered to fill out our questionnaire.
“But things have changed. Roskam and Hultgren have lost their way.”
Here’s what else has changed. Two years ago the Chicago Federation of Labor wasn’t an owner of the newspaper. That era began 16 months ago.
It doesn’t really matter what the Sun-Times remembers about its past. It isn’t the Sun-Times of 2000, which endorsed George W. Bush for president and, when Al Gore appealed the count in Florida, ran an editorial that began “Desperation does not make a pretty picture” alongside a Mark Steyn op-ed headlined “Following Gore over the cliff: Democratic troops make clear their intention to stick with their fearless leader, no matter how big a fool he makes of himself” and a George Will op-ed headlined “Gore’s weak case coming apart at the seams: Democrats’ arguments so thin that together they still add up to nothing.”
That was the Sun-Times of Conrad Black and David Radler, a Tory and a cynic, neither a friend of labor, and both—beg pardon for the digression—on their way to prison. Nor is today’s Sun-Times the Sun-Times of the earlier Rupert Murdoch nor the later Michael Ferro. And it’s not the Sun-Times of Marshall Field V, the young Mr. Old Money who benignly presided over the paper’s golden age in the 60s and 70s.
When the Sun-Times invokes its history it’s not invoking much of anything.