The Washington Post just can’t seem to solve its issues with presidential campaign photographs.

There was that glorious Wash Post magazine Obama cover last week (click here to see the humongous PDF version of the photo) headlined …

“The Beginning Of Something Big”

… which prompted this letter to the editor (among others) today …

I’m curious as to when Post management will finally acknowledge that it has become a tool of the communications arm of the Obama-Biden campaign. Did anyone even question the propriety of running a cover-story puff piece on a presidential candidate’s wife four weeks out from the election [Magazine, Oct. 5]? A story accompanied by a cover photo of the candidate and his wife looking wistfully into space next to the headline “The Beginning of Something Big.” It would make any PR firm or publicist proud.

I don’t suppose there’s any chance that tomorrow you’ll run anything remotely similar regarding the McCain-Palin ticket.

… and this observation from the ombudsman tomorrow:

Drew Greenblatt of Potomac asked: “Will Ms. Mundy do a nice piece on Cindy McCain next Sunday? If not, is your paper fair?” Cindy McCain was featured in a Style profile in July, and a Sept. 12 piece focused on the circumstances of her drug addiction many years ago. It was on Page 1 — a sore point with Republican readers.

Looks like there’s a different kind of addiction going around for Obama photos.

Here’s the Palin/Biden debate picture featured top of the Washington Post front page this morning…

And here’s how the photo looks right now on the Post website …

Any guesses why they’d look different

UPDATE: Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell:

Readers were right to complain that Friday’s Page 1 photo of Biden seeming to point aggressively at Palin did not reflect the tenor and civility of the debate.

Washington Post correction:

A Sept. 22 Style column about the Emmy Awards incorrectly attributed the quotation “There’s nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action” to Steve Martin. Tommy Smothers, who was introduced by Martin, made the statement.

Or, putting the correction a much simpler way …

While the media diligently fact checks everything Sarah Palin says — fair enough — it’s interesting to see when the media gets its own facts wrong about Sarah Palin.

Consider today’s Washington Post corrections box: a rare double-correction for one subject matter.

This:

CORRECTIONS:  A Sept. 7 Page One article incorrectly identified a mother and daughter who were in the maternity ward at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center at the same time Sarah Palin was there delivering her baby, Trig. The mother is Jennifer Krueger of Wasilla, Alaska, who gave birth to daughter Haylee Davison.

And this:

CLARIFICATION: A Sept. 12 Page One article quoted Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin as telling a brigade of Iraq-bound soldiers that they would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.” The report linked Palin’s comments with the idea that Saddam Hussein was connected to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, said Palin was referring to al-Qaeda in Iraq, a terror group that formed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and claims to be allied with the global al-Qaeda organization.

Whether it’s a maternity ward in Alaska or the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq, it’s good to see fact-checking working both ways.

This cartoon …

… gets the Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell upset:

Speaking of overdoing it, a political cartoon by Pat Oliphant that appeared on washingtonpost.com Wednesday prompted complaints from about 350 readers who said he lampooned their faith. The cartoon showed Palin speaking in tongues, an aspect of worship in some Pentecostal churches, and then God telling St. Peter that he didn’t understand what she was saying — “All I can hear is some dam’ right-wing politician spouting gibberish.”

Readers were right to complain…

Last night Barack Obama and John McCain participated in a panel discussion about getting more people involved in service.

But what if folks want to leave service — particularly government service?

You don’t often hear much about them.

Which is why we so enjoyed today’s Washington Post article about Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts since March 2003, who announced he will leave in January.

This Gioia quote is a gem:

“I really want to go back to writing. I haven’t had time for my own writing. I write all the time for the NEA, official writing. Since I have become chairman, I have not published a poem.”

What a great reason to depart the government.  Not to become a lobbyist or to be part of the permanent Washington Institution … but to write poetry.

That, Mr. Gioia, is poetry right there.  Congrats on getting published again.

Tough shot Fishbowl gives the Washington Post today for pointing out this editing error in a Paul Farhi story:

Of course, it’s Drudgereport.com.

That mistake earns this…

You know, to be honest, we really haven’t read Courtland Milloy since, well, the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Only by accident today did we stumble over his Washington Post column.  Metro section?  Style?  Tough to be sure.  Regardless, hoooo boy, are we glad we took a look.

Because lo and behold, whom does he take to task?  Whom does he get all woodshed on?
None other than fellow Washington Post thought leader Richard Cohen.

Here’s Milloy’s wind-up:

What is Obama to do?

Obviously, it’s not enough to battle your way to the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. You can vanquish a field of primary candidates. You can win campaigns in the far northwest, in places where there are no blacks to speak of. You can raise a war chest that exceeds the annual budget of a midsize town.

You can walk a fine line between being too black for whites and not black enough for blacks. But here you are, just weeks away from the presidential election, being called on to prove that you are man enough — without coming off as an angry black man.

And here’s Milloy’s pitch:

“Barack Obama, as an African American man, has a real challenge,” Estelle B. Freedman, professor of history at Stanford University, said Sunday on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” “Some of the criticism of Obama as being too aloof or not going after red meat enough or not being aggressive enough are really questioning his masculinity in some ways.

“But given the historic stereotypes about fear of African American men’s masculinity and fears of their aggression, Obama has been successful because he embodies an earlier model of black male politicians for whom respectability and reason were tickets into full citizenship.”

But not successful enough, apparently.

On Tuesday, Richard Cohen wrote on the op-ed page of The Washington Post that Obama’s appearance on a TV talk show Sunday “had me wondering if, as a kid, Obama ever got a shot in the mouth on the playground, he’d glare at the bully — and convene a meeting.”

Yowzers!  Richard Cohen under friendly fire!

For his column today, Milloy has earned back this wary reader.  And for the record books, Milloy has earned himself a six on the Batman fight scale.

A new Web 2.0 venture for the Washington Post?

(hat tip Instapundit/Michael Silence)

Fishbowl headline:

“Milbank, a Banana, and a Condom”