The Post Steps Up And Swats A Dilemma   

An easy call? Not this choice on an endorsement.

Newspapers have been wimping out on top-of-the ticket endorsement editorials. Half the dailies did not endorse in the 1992 presidential election. To explain this, editors engage in extraordinary displays of sophistry and above-the-fray posturing.

On October 19 the Washington Post demonstrated how to lay aside self-serving timidity and make a tough choice. Elsewhere it may have looked easy for the Post to endorse Carol Schwartz for mayor against Marion Barry, or at least easy to oppose Barry. But think of the perceptions and prejudices, as well as the broad responsibilities to the community, that came into play.

Barry won the Democratic primary nomination despite his abysmal record as mayor during his second and third terms, his conviction on cocaine charges, his racist efforts to save himself then and his subsequent off-the-wall behavior. Easy call. Anybody but Barry.

But the temptation of wimpery is ever present at big newspapers. In addition to being a reporter and interpreter of news, the Post is an institution, not totally unlike other big institutions. It is the goliath of Washington journalism, and a goliath in Washington, period.

On its editorial page it often seems too self-conscious about that: strained in its self-constraint, less compelling and interesting than it should be, rational but not always incisive. It is an exaggeration to say it is paralyzed by power, but on a given day it may seem to be. One faces Post editorials dutifully.

So along comes the kind of political race that makes some newspapers run for cover, even when it affects their readers' vital interests. This was the circumstance: Barry had decisively defeated the two other major African American candidates for mayor in the Democratic primary, one who was endorsed by the Post and one who is mayor. Schwartz, Barry's Republican opponent in the general election on November 8, had been given no chance of winning; only 7 percent of the District of Columbia's registered voters are Republicans. Further, she had been beaten badly by Barry before, had been out of office after service on the City Council and school board and had little money. (She had even had very little coverage in the Post.)

The Post could decline to endorse and leave an awkward pause forever. It perhaps could declare the election over and give a nod to Barry, with enough criticism and doubt to make him want a retraction. In utter hand-wringing dismay, it could even suggest write-ins or a fringe candidate.

It was more forthright. It endorsed Schwartz, made something of a case for her as a credible alternative and acknowledged that Barry is the "odds-on favorite to win." It referred to the "political destructiveness" of his third term, his contributions to the city's "fiscal and social wreckage" and his disservice to Washington's poor.

So it endorsed a minimal candidate, white and Republican, in a city that is two-thirds black, where Barry had won most of the black votes in the primary and where white voters overwhelmingly rejected him. (It might be noted that whites voted heavily for other black candidates and black voters opted decisively for a white City Council president.)

That makes even the powerful Washington Post vulnerable to harsh attack at home. But not for lack of fortitude.