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Since I wrote the post below this past Sunday, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has explained his decision to revert to the Post’s non-endorsement policy in “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media.” My post was triggered by my old Weekly Standard editor Jonathan Last’s Bulwark column asserting that the Post’s non-endorsement and Elon Musk’s support of President Trump were inspired by fear of a pending Trump victory in the presidential election. Jon’s column is “The guardrails are already crumpling.” Now we have video of Elon Musk stumping for Trump in Pennsylvania. Musk’s support of Trump is motivated by fear, alright, but he fears the damage of a fourth Obama term to the United States. If you can’t see that, you can’t see anything. Below the break I want to reiterate what I had to say on Sunday with revised comments an the Star Tribune.

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The Washington Post has announced it will not endorse a presidential candidate this year. Post publisher and chief executive officer William Lewis posted his statement explaining the non-endorsement on Friday. Lewis made the case that the Post was reverting to an old policy whose wisdom he defended.

Consternation — consternation among the laborers on the news and editorial staff — has ensued. They feel that ownership is letting democracy die in cowardice.

I prefer to think that an aversion to redundancy might have inspired the intervention of ownership. Covering the Post’s non-endorsement, the New York Times cited former Post owner Katharine Graham’s painful recollection in her memoir Personal History, “Graham described a tearful conversation with President Lyndon B. Johnson, whom she considered a friend, where she informed him that The Post would not make an endorsement.”

Graham recalled in her memoir: “Though I had made it clear to L.B.J. from the beginning that we wouldn’t endorse him, I felt he could read between the lines of the paper and realize The Post was positive about his programs.” In that sense the Post’s editorial endorsement would have been redundant.

As with LBJ, so with Post readers. Attentive readers could infer the from the paper’s coverage of the administration in its pages and draw the inference that the paper supported LBJ.

Professional standard have “evolved” to such an extent that Post news stories frequently read like editorials. You don’t have to study the art of esoteric writing to infer the politics of the Post’s political reporters, columnists, and editors. We know where they’re coming from, more so now than ever before.

Jeff Bezos owns the Post. Over at the Bulwark, Jonathan Last argues that fear of the coming of Donald Trump has inspired Bezos to stay the hand of his editors’ endorsement in the presidential contest.

You have got to be kidding me. Isn’t it a little late for that? That’s a rhetorical question, but yes, yes it is.

Jon changes up the Trump is Hitler theme of the Harris campaign to make the case that Trump is Putin. Jon is my former Weekly Standard online editor. In that capacity he kept me from embarrassing myself when necessary. I’m not sure anyone at the Bulwark is performing a similar editorial service for him.

Jon fits Elon Musk’s support of Trump into his Trump is Putin thesis. He might usefully have examined Musk’s concerns about the Biden-Harris-Walz support of censorship in the name of “misinformation” or the treatment of Musk’s business interests by the current administration. With the slightest extension of grace to Musk’s motives, Jon may have found that Musk has Putin on his mind too when he looks at the Democrat ticket.

Do Post readers need the guidance of an editorial endorsement in an intensely covered presidential contest? Surely the interest of readers should be given some consideration in this context. Here let me quote Jon himself: “No one cares about the Washington Post’s presidential endorsement. It will not move a single vote.”

Glen Taylor owns the Star Tribune, which is my hometown newspaper. The paper has avowed it won’t publish a formal editorial endorsement in the presidential contest. However, the paper’s support of Walz and disparagement of Trump are everyday themes. Even without a formal endorsement readers would die of redundancy if redundancy were lethal.

Walz, by the way, ruled Minnesota like a dictator for 15 months with the paper’s recurring stamp of approval. Star Tribune reporters, columnists, and editors may in fact fear Walz or his delegate — Star Tribune publisher Steve Grove. That may explain why they have never gotten around to noticing that Walz is a compulsive liar. Walz has been exposed as such in the glare of the national spotlight, but you wouldn’t have known from reading the Star Tribune.

The Star Tribune has adopted “a pause” on endorsements. Taylor is a billionaire businessman with a high tolerance for mediocrity. Say what you will about him, however, he doesn’t fear the rise of Trump as Putin sufficiently (if at all) to exercise the privileges of ownership with the paper’s editors and they have continued to do their thing all along the way. You can read this October 28 Star Tribune editorial as the next best (worst) thing to a formal endorsement of the Harris-Walz ticket.