Chi Trib has new policy: advertising on its front page. You don’t believe me? Look at today’s home delivery, with this joyous, camaraderie-filled big picture over the fold:
Sorry, cannot find the glorious buddy shot on the web — different audiences, you know — and have to go with this. The glorious one has these three plus two others unnamed in a 48–square-inch shot in which O. sits behind desk, rolled back from it, knee crossed, hand on chin, watching E. and A. joshing with each other, O. watching as a kindly uncle. Good times at the White House!
The story is by by one Christi Parsons and Peter Nicholas, both of TribCo-owned LA Times, with its lede to die for:
President Obama was certain that he wanted to pass a healthcare bill. The question before his advisors was how to go about it.
Oh boy. It’s called keeping it soft for the home folks. And there was lots more to come, such as:
Axelrod and Emanuel are star players in almost every discussion. That might be expected given the common portrayals of the two. Emanuel is the hard-eyed, salty-tongued pragmatist who counts votes and navigates the polarized politics of Capitol Hill. Axelrod is more relaxed and avuncular, more inclined to invoke the aspirational language that Obama used in his campaign.
I love that “hard-eyed, salty-tongued” bit, “relaxed and avuncular” too. And that “aspirational language,” oh!
You heard about all that rivalry and angst and O.’s being no longer happy with this job? Or the ongoing ever-intenser struggle with recalcitrant Dems over Obamacare? Look, that stuff doesn’t belong in a love letter. Wash Post has it already anyhow. Give the Chicagocrats something to warm their hearts with over coffee. What’s a noosepaper for, anyhow?
Blithe Spirit 