Hardly shocking news, but it's always good to note for the record
whenever a mainstream media journalist admits - or boasts - of voting
for the more liberal presidential candidate. The Nobel Peace Prize
going to President Barack Obama prompted such an admission from
long-time Washington Post reporter Ruth Marcus, the paper's deputy
national editor from 1999 through 2002 (bio [1])
and now a columnist. In an opinion piece in the Saturday Post, Marcus
called the selection "ridiculous - embarrassing, even." Then she
offered up what gives her the credibility to make such a judgment:
I admire President Obama. I like President Obama. I voted for President Obama.
She concluded by fretting of Obama's Nobel: "I suspect it did not do
the president any favors. Obama's cheerleaders don't need encouragement
- and his critics will only seize on the prize to further lampoon the
Obama-as-messiah storyline. Now what does he do for an encore?" That's not how Marcus originally concluded. The Saturday print Post version [2] was drawn from what Marcus wrote on Friday for the paper's "PostPartisan [3]" blog. There, she concluded [4]: "Speaking of which, what does he do for an encore? Somebody, quick, call the pope."
Marcus' ballot box disclosure corroborates then-Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, who proposed in her November 16, 2008 column [5]:
I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo.
An excerpt from the start and end of Marcus' item in the Saturday, October 10 Washington Post:
"Mom!" my 12-year-old yelled from the kitchen. "President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize!" I told her she had to be mistaken.
This is ridiculous - embarrassing, even. I admire President Obama. I like President Obama. I voted for President Obama. But the peace prize? This is supposed to be for doing, not being - and it's no disrespect to the president to suggest he hasn't done much yet. Certainly not enough to justify this prize.
"Extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples?" "Captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future?" Please. This turns the award into something like pee-wee soccer: Everybody wins for trying....
I suspect it did not do the president any favors. Obama's cheerleaders don't need encouragement - and his critics will only seize on the prize to further lampoon the Obama-as-messiah storyline.
Now what does he do for an encore?
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center