COMM 386: President-elect Obama, the Trib and a sense of history

Within an hour of President-elect Barack Obama's victory speech in Grant Park, the Chicago Tribune was up on its website with an editorial on its historical significance. It was, as Obama said, a "defining moment." And editorials like the Trib's help define moments like this.

(How do papers react so quickly to events? Easy. They write the editorials ahead of time. My guess: The Trib would have had another editorial, equally well argued, all written and ready to put up on the website if Republican John McCain had won.)

Anyway, the Trib has been invoking Abraham Lincoln lately. And I've noticed more historical references in the media lately, from a long piece on President Andrew Jackson's legacy means today in Newsweek to the chorus of media commentators tonight talking about how extraordinary Obama's victory is and how it fulfills what historical figures like Dr. Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass fought for. To give credit where it's due, the media have tried hard lately to rise above the cliches about lipstick on pigs and endless "horserace" coverage. They've tried to put things into perspective, often hard to do on daily and weekly deadlines.

At any rate, the Trib mentioned Lincoln again in the Obama editorial. The lede:

On Feb. 12, Americans will celebrate the birthday of their most important and most beloved president. Abraham Lincoln entered the world on that date in 1809 in a cabin near Hodgenville, Ky.

His bicentennial would be an important occasion under any circumstances. But it will carry even greater symbolic significance because of something scheduled to happen three weeks earlier: the inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States.

Obama’s victory is one of those events that reveal how far the nation has traveled. ...

Chicago writer Studs Terkel, who died just last week, used to say American has a national case of Altzheimer's disease. But in the last few days, maybe it's been in remission.

Another issue the Trib touched on was civility, and it saw hope in Obama's refusal to get down in the briar patch with his opponents:

There are other reasons to celebrate the election of this citizen of Chicago—the only one ever elevated to the White House. Obama won by appealing to a deep yearning for national reconciliation and unity that spans partisan divides. From the moment he captured national attention with a stirring speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention to the last day of this campaign, he reminded us that amid our often-contentious diversity, we are one nation joined in a common mission.

Skeptics often questioned his approach, insisting that it made him look weak and was doomed to fail. But even when he was losing primaries to Hillary Clinton, even when Republicans painted him as an anti-American socialist, Obama retained the composure and intelligence that he has always shown under pressure.

While ably defending himself and pointing out his opponents’ shortcomings, he declined to descend into angry invective. By winning, he raises the hope of a more civil polity. His moderate tone may also ease the pain felt by John McCain’s supporters, who will be waiting to see whether his administration is as inclusive as his rhetoric.

McCain deserves credit for this, too. But the Trib's editorial predicted, I think quite correctly, that "America’s political rancor won’t instantly disappear." The Trib said defusing it will be one of Obama's great challenges:

Pollster Peter Hart recently found that one-third of each candidate’s supporters have come to “detest” McCain or Obama so thoroughly that they couldn’t accept him as president. Hart asked a Wall Street Journal reporter, “How do you knit a nation back together with this kind of animosity?”

That remains a challenge. But Obama could not have dared to run for president if he didn’t believe his fellow citizens could overcome the pitfalls of the past and the present to achieve a better future.