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“Keeping Their Opinions to Themselves,” by Clark Hoyt, The New York Times, Oct. 18, 2008.

LAST Tuesday, The Times ran a Political Memo about the content and style of Sarah Palin’s campaign speeches, and I braced for an outpouring of protest from her supporters….

“It’s so obvious who the NYT is supporting for the presidency,” said Cheryl Page of Jackson, Miss. “How sad that our media can’t just report the news, rather than print their opinions in biased ways.” There is a proper place for opinion in The Times — the editorial and Op-Ed pages — and there is no doubt that most of the newspaper’s regular columnists and its editorial policy favor Obama. It would be a shock if The Times did not endorse him.

But the paper’s news coverage is another matter. It is supposed to be evenhanded. I think I’ve seen bias from time to time, and I think The Times made a serious mistake early this year that gave its critics on the right a lot of ammunition: an article that suggested, but failed to prove, a romantic relationship between John McCain and a female lobbyist. (The Op-Ed page, though independent from the newsroom, added to the problem when it ran an article by Obama without first securing a companion piece from McCain. McCain then offered a rebuttal, but when the paper asked for major revisions, he refused and his supporters cried foul.) But I think the news coverage over a long campaign has been better and fairer than critics would admit.

“To the People of Kentucky,” by Gracchus, 1820.

Populated by farmers and frontiersmen, Kentucky in 1820 was Jeffersonian territory, and that year’s gubernatorial election—contested during American politics’ one-party “Era of Good Feelings”—pitted four D-R candidates against each other. In an atmosphere clouded by rampant financial speculation that had left many Kentuckians destitute and desperate for debt relief, the election hinged on the question of who voters thought would best remedy the financial panic wrought by the Eastern, “federal,” Establishment. General Joseph Desha, the candidate endorsed in the broadside below, finished third in the race behind John Adair and William Logan (but ahead of Anthony Butler); four years later, though, he was elected as the ninth governor of Kentucky.

SINCE the commencement of the canvass for the office of governor, attempts the most unfair and pitiful have been resorted to by the supporters of Col. Butler and the enemies of Gen. Desha, to draw aside the pretensions of the latter entirely from the public consideration; whilst those of the former have been industriously misrepresented and overrated, that he might be foisted into office.

Early in the contest, a gentleman writes from Montgomery county to his friend in the Green river country that, upon the north side of the Kentucky river, Butler would have ten votes to Desha’s one!!—that Desha was entirely out of the question.

A letter said to be from a highly respectable character in the Green river country, was lately published in that honest and impartial paper, the Kentucky Reporter, which gave Gen. Desha scarcely any votes at all in that quarter!

A letter of similar stamp, from the same part of the country, published recently in the “Union,” details similar information!

General Desha’s public address, as well as other writings favorable to his election, have been excluded from the columns of certain newspapers, which have PROSTITUTED the sacred name of—REPUBLICAN.

Anonymous hand-bills, intended to create false impressions relative to Desha’s standing, have been written by, and circulated at the expense of, a man who is said and believed to owe his present elevation in the public councils to an intrigue with Butler—and who has pledged himself and all his extensive connections to the support of Butler at—all hazards.

The avowed as well as secret advocates of a property law, have busied themselves in giving currency to these slanders and falsehoods against Desha—because he does not suit their views—and to advance the pretensions of their favorite candidate—Butler. Desha has even been stigmatized by them, as wanting in public spirit, for refusing to decline in his favor!—For refusing to decline in favor of a man whose public character is unknown to the people of Kentucky, who was and is yet the advocate of a property law, and who, in private life, is represented as an extravagant dasher!

In a word, a FACTION, composed principally of court sycophants, pettifogging politicians and some few zealous but weak-headed republicans, appear to have determined to force Butler upon us for governor, by endeavoring to dupe the honest farmers and mechanics of the state.

But all their devices, their intrigues and their falsehoods are failing them. Plain, honest, homemade republicanism, is about to triumph over their wily politics. The people have resolved to be their dupes no longer. Butler will be beaten by every other candidate in his own part of the country—Green river. This is asserted confidently, upon information in which the writer places the utmost reliance….

IT IS THEREFORE DESHA, AND NOT BUTLER, WHO CAN SUCCESSFULLY COMPETE WITH ADAIR, AND PREVENT FEDERAL RULE.

REPUBLICANS OF KENTUCKY!—Let us then, to a man, unite in favor of the well tried and undeviating republican, Gen. Desha. In doing so, we will alike blast the rising hopes of the federal faction, and defeat the machinations of an upstart and spurious democracy. You will place a man in the chair of state whose interests, whose feelings and whose principles, are yours—and who is every way qualified to fill the station with honor to himself and happiness to his country.

GRACCHUS.

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