Yesterday, Barack Obama won the endorsements of 17 newspapers around the country while John McCain received only 2. According to Editor & Publisher, that brings the tally up to 28 for Obama (with a combined daily circulation of 2,758,429) vs. 11 for McCain (circ. of 1,349,721.) Yikes. Another interesting tidbit from E&P: Obama has now won the endorsement of 5 newspapers that endorsed George W. Bush in 2004 including CA's The San Bernadino Sun and The Stockton Record, OH's The Canton Repository, PA's The Easton Express-Times and WI's The Wisconsin State Journal.

The San Bernardino Sun endorsement is particularly sweet, coming as it does just as the county, which is to the east of LA County and typically considered among the reddest parts of California, turns blue. The Sun's editorial board was unanimous in its choice of Barack Obama, saying, in part:

We're in a crisis of confidence in this country. We need a new direction, because where we've been headed is not good. What people need most right now is hope.

That's why Sen. Barack Obama is the best choice for the next president of the United States.

Obama has the ability to restore America's confidence and get people excited about working our way back to prosperity. He inspires the younger generation like no political figure since President John F. Kennedy.

Just as importantly, he has the smarts needed to run the country. It's crucial now to have a president who can take an informed and nuanced approach to the nation's and world's increasingly complex and interrelated problems.

We must elect a president who embraces adaptability and resourcefulness.

Obama would give the nation both.

One of the more interesting endorsements Obama received over the past 24 hours was not from a publication at all but rather from Christopher Hitchens, whose political leanings shifted decidedly rightward after 9/11 and even wrote in The Nation four years ago that he was "(Slightly) For Bush." Well, this year he's for Obama, although the endorsement appears driven more by disdain for McCain and Palin than any great regard for Obama. His take down of the GOP ticket is extremely entertaining to read. Here's a taste.

Last week's so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience. McCain occasionally remembers to stress matters like honor and to disown innuendoes and slanders, but this only makes him look both more senile and more cynical, since it cannot (can it?) be other than his wish and design that he has engaged a deputy who does the innuendoes and slanders for him.