Scratching Obama's Teflon

Doyle McManus, the Times bureau chief, tried to reassure his demoralized staff afterward. In a memo, McManus said Zell's comments "shouldn't be taken literally. . . . Sam Zell likes to say his role is to throw bombs and shake people up." On that point, he succeeded.

Cruelty to Animals

California's North County Times has fired an editor with a warped sense of humor. As a joke, the unnamed editor mucked with a wire-service account of a news conference on pet-spaying at which a Los Angeles City Council member "held a kitten," changing the verb to "strangled." The paper apologized for the "terrible mistake."

Furthermore . . .

And here's a good item:

The Associated Press reported that "Rep. Jon Porter, D-Nev. . . . sounded downright Republican by echoing the GOP's calls for the House to get back to debating the president's surveillance program." Maybe that's because he is a Republican. A correction followed.

Michelle Obama is getting all kinds of coverage:

"It is no longer Bill Clinton, husband of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who is drawing the headlines," says the Chicago Tribune. "This is, in part, by design, following a spate of comments by the former president that may have hurt his wife's candidacy more than his own continuing appeal on the campaign trail helped.

"It is now Michelle Obama who, with her own comments in recent weeks, may also have created more controversy than comfort for her husband's candidacy."

Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi warns: "If Michelle Obama isn't careful, she could get the Hillary Clinton treatment, circa 1992 . . .

"Right now, Barack Obama's wife is as much a media favorite as her husband, the presidential candidate. Her predebate advice to Obama -- 'Feel, don't think' -- is portrayed as political genius. A Newsweek cover story describes a smart, well-grounded woman, with an inspirational life story who is 'neither Stepford booster nor surrogate campaign manager.' Her independence and outspokenness are viewed as virtues, at least for now.

"That could change, as Republicans search for any antidote to Obama fever."

And a big Michelle piece in the New Yorker:

"Obama seems like an iconoclast precisely because she's normal (the norm for a candidate's wife having been defined, in the past, as nonworking, white, and pious about the democratic process).