Perhaps this will make up for CoverGate: The New Yorker has just endorsed Barack Obama in an editorial just released online and on newsstands on Monday in the October 13th issue. The editorial — by "the Editors" — is called "The Choice" and should probably surprise no one, but man do they make their case: 4,214 words with a laundry list of areas in which the Bush administration has failed the country, and McCain has failed to lead or inspire. (That's the kindest way of expressing it. Here's a ess kind way: "John McCain [has] played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever- increasing ardor.") In contrast, the "Editors" point out how Obama has done just that: Leading and inspiring, but also following up his promise for change with thought, strategy, work and action.
It is notable, too, that in an essay of this length, only a single paragraph is devoted to McCain's "cyicism" in choosing Palin. That said, on this, the day of the Vice-Presidential debate, it's the one everyone will read it looking for. Here's an excerpt.
We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on "Saturday Night Live," but as a vision of the political future it's deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility.
Here's their conclusion:
At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness... It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader's name is Barack Obama.
Of course, they would say that — look at their logo! The New Yorker is obviously a snooty Joe Sixpack-hating member of the gotcha media elite. So, they can't be trusted, just like the silly facts they cite. Right?
The full editorial is here.
Update: A spokewoman for the New Yorker confirms that the byline "the Editors" meant that "many people weighed in" but editor David Remnick and columnist Rick Hertzberg "took the lead."