Ah, October and its dreaded October Surprise. Looking for one turns the month into a 31-day house of horrors for political operatives and those of us who like to watch how said operatives react to the unforeseen thing that could knock them or their opponents off stride in the race to the November election.

For the so-called October Surprise to be effective, it has to be, well, a surprise; it has to fit a preexisting narrative about the candidate; it has to penetrate the public’s consciousness and it has to come before Election Day.

But here’s the thing: The October Surprise happened in September.

Far below the normal recesses of the PostScript bunker, farther below even than the PostScript bunker’s bunker, there lies the bunker of bias, the most secure location current technology can fashion. Locked inside it is a strongbox guarded by fourteen fanged dragons, which contains, encoded in Navajo anagrams, the one true secret media bias decoder ring. With it, one can absorb media while remaining completely immune to the the media’s insidious efforts to skew you to their way of thinking.

Unfortunately PostScript’s method of dealing with dragons involves a lot of cowering and avoidance, so it’s unlikely anyone’s ever going to get to use the secret decoder ring anytime soon. So what we’re left with is everyone having his or her own secret bias decoder ring, which conflicts with everyone else’s, without any of us ever being able to prove our ring is correct. Darn!

This situation leads us into Ombudsman Patrick Pexton’s column about reader perception of bias in the Post, particularly as it relates to being fair to the Presidential candidates. Summary: There is a lot of perception of bias. Pexton singles out news analysis and political coverage by reporters who are also probably, as the saying goes, “in the tank” for Democrats: Ezra Klein, Courtland Milloy, Walter Pincus, etc. These writers do not appear on the Opinions page, but are perceived to have political biases or agendas discernible in their reporting.

When does opinionating based on one’s political views (which seems like a perfectly legitimate part of the trade of the columnist) become “bias,” which is presumably when one’s opinions are dishonestly slanted? This is subtle territory; without the one magic decoder ring, though, this would seem to be indeterminate, in the realm of speculation based on one’s own political leanings.

flyover22 thinks the Post’s biggest bias is to cozy up to Washington’s power structure, and readers will know it’s not biased when reporters can burn more bridges without fear. (Basically, PostScript extrapolates, we’d show we are unbiased only if we were more fearless in our unholy partnership with power, and less like a remora on a shark):

I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. The Washington Post has a liberal bias, but you come by it honestly, for you write for, and in, a bubble, that is Washington. A big powerful government, means a big powerful Washington, and a big powerful Post. As a pro business individual I understand this completely. It’s not malicious as much as it’s contacts, sources, environment, profit, neighbors, colleagues, friends, readers, education, etc.

What the Post lacks is the cynicism of journalism and/or the reporters of old,the questioning of anything and everything on both sides -- but, in particular, power and its associated corruption.

QuiteAlarmed says we’ll know the paper is less biased when it is less concerned with not SEEMING biased:

Today’s topic seems to be October Surprises, with Mitt Romney’s campaign supposedly all excited that alleged malfeasance by the Obama administration in Libya will boost Romney’s chances. Kevin Drum has an excellent item on the history of them going back to 1944. He concludes that these events are unlikely to be effective because voters are so cynical and simply dismiss them as campaign tactics.

I’d expand on that, however, and argue that October Surprises are unlikely to matter to the outcome in November for exactly the same reasons that the debates are unlikely to matter, as John Sides explains it. Those include: most people have made up their minds by October; the people most likely to know about a news event are the ones most likely to have already decided; and partisans and other decided voters are apt to interpret the events through their own prior attitudes — that is, President Obama’s supporters are likely to heavily discount any new information they receive at this point, or simply just interpret it to fit in with their already-set belief that Obama is doing a decent job.

In July of 2011, when Mitt Romney looked like he had a better-than-even chance at beating President Obama, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer declared that the 2012 election would be the “definitive resolution” of a grand ideological war between those who want to roll back the welfare state and those who want to advance it — conservatives’ “chance to restructure government and change the ideological course of the country.”

Now that Obama is the odds-on favorite to win this November, progressive columnist Paul Krugman essentially argues the same thing, only with an assumption of triumph for the liberal cause. Krugman writes: “Voters are, in effect, being asked to deliver a verdict on the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy.” Because of that, Krugman says, Obama “should just say no” to budget dealmarking with Republicans reminiscent of last year’s bargaining. Accepting a plan based on the Simpson-Bowles budget framework “would be betraying the trust of the voters who returned him to office.” Obama’s real task would be passing another stimulus and “preserving and extending” the welfare state.

Krugman now is about as right as Krauthammer was then.

George Zimmerman is in a bloody mess. The killer of Trayvon Martin claims that he was in a life-and-death struggle with the unarmed teenager. But DNA tests are not exactly bearing that out. Yes, they prove the two were in close proximity. One stain on the shirt that Trayvon wore underneath the hoodie was a DNA match to Zimmerman. But these tests raise more questions about (or poke more holes in) Zimmerman’s story.

Despite claims that Trayvon grabbed Zimmerman’s gun, Trayvon’s DNA was not found on the weapon or its holster. Despite claims that Trayvon pummeled Zimmerman in the face and the head, none of Zimmerman’s DNA was found on Trayvon’s hoodie. Not even on the cuffs or the sleeves.

And then there are Zimmerman’s shirt and jacket.

There were 47 stains tested for the presence of blood on Zimmerman’s shirt and jacket. Of the 16 on his shirt, 14 “gave chemical indications for the presence of blood.” All matched Zimmerman’s DNA profile. Of the 31 stains tested on the jacket, 17 “gave chemical indications for the presence of blood.” Nine of the 17 matched Zimmerman’s DNA profile. The remaining eight are nothing short of curious.