This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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This editorial will appear in Monday's print edition.
The election of America's first black president is a vindication of Martin Luther King Jr.'s critical faith in America.
The symbolism is momentous.
When Barack Obama is sworn into office Tuesday on the steps of the Capitol, his hand will rest on Abraham Lincoln's Bible. Nearly two miles to the west, at the opposite end of the Mall, the Great Emancipator himself will witness the inauguration from within the Doric columns of the Lincoln Memorial.
Obama is a flesh-and-blood politician, not an icon carved in stone. Like any new president, he will enjoy a honeymoon of popularity that inevitably will give way to missteps, criticism and political opposition. He is no more guaranteed re-election, let alone greatness, than he is doomed to failure.
At another level, though, there remains the stark fact that Obama is the first African American president elected in a country whose foundations are stained by the cruelties of slavery and Jim Crow. Viewed through the prism of the past, Obama's inauguration – if not the man himself – is as iconic as the monumental sculpture of the seated Lincoln.
Symbolically, the intermediary between Lincoln and Obama's inauguration is Martin Luther King Jr.
Tacoma's first election of 2009 is only seven weeks away. The Tacoma School District pitches a $300 million construction bond issue to voters on March 10.
Leading the campaign will be Stadium Video owner Marty Campbell, hired by the Citizens for Tacoma Schools committee.
Campbell faces a tough assignment, given the tough economic climate and a high validation requirement for the bond measure. But he calls the proposal a home-grown economic stimulus.
In his column today, Leonard Pitts Jr. talks about the slew of editorial cartoons that came out after after the Nov. 4 election showing Abraham Lincoln celebrating Barack Obama's victory.
I think we ran one or two of them. This one, by former News Tribune cartoonist Chris Britt, is one that didn't run at the time. I thought it was a little goofy then, and still do. But it does illustrate the point Pitts is making in his column:
"... when Obama was elected in November, every third political cartoonist seemed to use an image of a celebrating Lincoln to comment upon the milestone that had occurred. Lincoln, they told us, would have been overjoyed.
