As a visiting fellow at Oxford’s Saint John’s College in 1978, I was given the opportunity to observe from behind a screen a student in final examination at tutorial. Stunningly for me, I had never before seen such a throwback to old medieval student-tutor relationship as the student sat deferentially on a chair before his don while the professor, glasses perched on the tip of his nose cracked not a smile and at least once where I was aware sought to trap his quarry in a nonsensical roundelay concerning John Milton. By this comparison the tutorial of Gov. Sarah Palin run by ABC’s Charles Gibson was benign. But we have the word of Charles Krauthammer who himself defined the so-called “Bush Doctrine” that there are four of them not one as tutor Gibson insisted-so by that Oxford measure the student who asked for clarification should be given full credit. Not so from the “New York Times” editorial board Saturday morning. Not so also from Lynn Sweet of the “Sun-Times” who is smart enough to avoid the Bush Doctrine pitfall the “Times” editorial plunged into and politically sagacious enough to spin a story wherein she can cause Palin and the Republicans some trouble.

I have pointed out as one who has seen some brilliant journalists perform since the 1930s…Westbrook Pegler, George Sokolsky et al… that I think Sweet is a great journalist in their tradition but particularly of the late George Tagge of the “Tribune” and George Rothwell Brown of the Hearst papers, whose astuteness in politics were unmatched by pols of their day. Tagge was first a reporter who would not allow his ideology to prevent him from a story. In essence that means that if he came upon a story showing that Robert A. Taft was a charlatan or thief, Tagge would report it straight without fear or favor no matter what his conservative overlords…including Col. Robert R. McCormick, the then autocratic editor and publisher…might say or do-even including the possibility he might be fired. That is what endeared George to me. But his Machiavellian astuteness won my admiration. As with Brown who was a very powerful advocate of his boss’ interests in Democratic conventions as in 1932 when Hearst, a presidential wanna-be, feinted with the idea of supporting John Garner against FDR.

It has taken me a long time to figure out that Lynn Sweet is a superlative journalist in the Pegler, Sokolsky and Brown-but most of all George Tagge mode. As was George she is an ideologue and tailors her dispatches with the end in mind of partisan victory. As with George she knows a great deal more of the political process than many of the Democratic campaign staffers she covers. He knew the temper of the times…the attitudes of the then prevalent interest groups, the prejudices of the then big donors. She knows all this plus image-building and the efficacy of YouTube spots to a sharp appreciation of the “ground game,” the process by which voters are importuned with propaganda, registered, further motivated and excited…even transported…to get to the polls so that the total liberal Democratic victory she idealizes is attained. And like George she knows full well how to use her dispatches to sow confusion to her enemies. George once circulated the notion that Adlai Stevenson was insufficiently liberal-citing his anti-civil rights views-so as to dissuade his liberal supporters in his ranks.

Lynn in Saturday’s paper circulated the notion that she dearly hopes will weaken Sarah Palin with her passionate followers-recognizing a Saturday paper is largely unread but a chance worth taking anyhow. First, the idea…soon to be cultivated by late night talk show hosts Leno and Letterman to whom conservatives are congenitally stupid anyhow…that Palin is dumb by which Sweet insinuates the governor mixed up entitlements with federal agencies-not readily perceived from the transcript since it was obvious Palin the Gibson quarry was just trying to change the subject but: ah, but that’s just a throw-away ploy. T

The BIG almost ingeniously dialogic insinuation generated by Sweet is that Palin is only a so-so social conservative, one whose support of key issues is weak-kneed. Coiled comfortably, Sweet emits the coyly divisive suggestion with a purr that says the interview could be interpreted to mean “that a Vice President Palin was not going to crusade for the hot-button social issues of abortion, embryonic stem cell research and homosexuality.” This could weaken Palin with the right. In Sweet’s dreams. Absurd but worth trying. Where did she get this idea? Because Palin like all vice presidential candidates has to qualify her views “I personally” which began with John Adams since he ran into early trouble being seen to speak for George Washington, cognizant that a second in command cannot speak definitively for the president. And on the issue of homosexuality, Palin wisely eschewed delineation of the theologic issue, aware that in this culture it could be emblazoned as gay bashing. Thus Sweet smartly lofts this upward as a signal to the right that their candidate may betray them.

Not much chance that it will work, but then Lynn Sweet, advocacy journalist, is powered by a restless engine that knows no rest.