Candor and Self-Respect at PPH

It can't be stressed enough that PPH's endorsement of Sen. Collins represents a devastating abdication of professional responsibility.

But let me be clear: I'm not saying the endorsement is egregious and unprofessional because PPH chose to back a senator who has enabled just about all the Bush administration's illiberal, reactionary policies over the last eight years.

Rather, it's an abdication because it refuses to defend those policies. Or contextualize them. Or explain why they were less important than something else.

PPH simply ignores them. It's as if the editorial was written in a parallel universe where Susan Collins played no role in the Iraq war, the ballooning national debt or the country's steady drift away from the rule of law.

Simply put: By adopting the language of a Collins camp press release and shirking its journalistic duty to provide a frank and independent assessment of the race, the PPH editorial board showed that it has no self-respect.

And by refusing to talk to its readers candidly about its reasons for backing Susan Collins, the paper confirmed that it has no respect for them either.