I know the newspaper industry is in trouble. I know their advertising base has been depleted by all the “new media” out there. I also know they are still needed if we are to survive as a free people. For years the “news” has been coming mostly from print reporters who went out and dug it up. What you see on television, is usually a follow-up to a story that originated with a newspaper or wire service. The great Walter Cronkite, famously, was uncomfortable putting anything on the air at CBS until it had appeared in the New York Times.

Consequently, I expect the Baltimore Sun to put the dysfunctionalism of the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland, their inability to work together for the common good, under a microscope on a regular basis. With two past mayors and the current Baltimore State’s Attorney, all indicted, and street crime that continues to be out of control, they should be holding public officials accountable daily. With the indictments and the crime and the general governmental mess, Baltimore, should be a journalist’s Nirvana.

That said, what their editorial board just came up with, broadly condemning President Biden, left me thinking that the people who wrote the piece must have spent the past several years doing nothing but watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island.

I was fine with the editorial until it was coming to an end, with the accusation that Joe Biden hasn’t been “honest.” Really? When? And if that wasn’t enough, they then capped it off with, “For his second year in office, not being Donald Trump will not be enough.” They have got to be kidding. Not being Trump, will be more than enough. Except for those who have spent the past several years sequestered on an island eating coconuts with the Skipper and Mary Ann.

Can a major American newspaper really be that blind to the threat Trump and his Russian-backed cabal pose to the survival of our democracy? Apparently so. Can they be blind to the possibility that this current situation with Trumpist Republicans blocking any forward motion in the Senate, causing a federal logjam and general discontent throughout the land, and the pressure that puts on the White House – wouldn’t that be the perfect time for Putin, to threaten to send his troops into the Ukraine?

Oh, but that’s a stretch, isn’t it? Or should we be asking ourselves, “Who still supports Democracy, and who stands against it?” Maybe Joe Biden not being Donald Trump, is enough after all.