The Times + Gregoire

The Seattle Times endorsed Dino Rossi for governor last year, but the paper seems now to be madly in love with the re-elected Christine Gregoire. In an April 30 editorial, the state's largest daily called the governor "nothing if not tenacious" in her battle for a climate-change bill. It only lightly chided her the next week over electoral-college reform, and a few days later beseeched her to veto cuts in the state auditor's budget (which she did). On May 22, the governor was deemed by the Times to be "smart and courageous" for vetoing part of an education-reform bill. She then won editorial "kudos" last Tuesday for signing the gay rights bill. On Wednesday, she was favorably cited for signing the rest of the education bill, and on Friday was singled out for her stance questioning any new roadways in national forests.

This was the governor the Times last fall felt couldn't run the state. Now she can do little wrong. What happened? The Times hasn't explained its about-face, but maybe it should. Since April, the governor has had that newspaper-relief bill on her desk, the 40 percent tax cut that Frank Blethen personally lobbied for in Olympia, telling legislators that he and other publishers were hanging by their fingertips. And in the middle of this string of laudatory editorials, Gregoire signed it into law, on May 12. A bit of reciprocal if unethical back scratching? Couldn't be. The Times wouldn't be so obviously compromised, right? Then again, that's the thing about a newspaper asking for, and getting, favors from the governor: You have to wonder what the governor will get in return.