Times to Coleman: Drop Dead

Add the New York Times to the list of newspaper editorial boards that want Norm Coleman to quit while he’s behind.

UPDATED after the jump with more new newspaper editorials.

The Times’ editorial today is a shade less emphatic than the one that ushered former Sen. Tom Daschle out of consideration as President Obama’s secretary of health and human services. Former Sen. Coleman is unlikely to do what Daschle did when faced with “Daschle ought to step aside” and heed the Times’ advice with same-day service.

But the Times’ headline, “‘It’s Over, Norm. O.K.?,’” says it all with a phrase that’s direct and succinct, if borrowed (from former U.S. Rep. and current MSNBC host Joe Scarborough). It’s almost worthy of a tabloid rival like the New York Daily News, which set the standard in the 1970s with the famous “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

Compare it to the Star Tribune’s editorial headline on Wednesday, “Expedite appeal in election contest,” which said nothing.

The Las Vegas Sun also lays it on the line today in an editorial under the heading “Time to step aside: Republican Coleman should cede Minnesota Senate race to Democrat Franken.” Its kicker: “The longer (Coleman) persists in his charade, the more he hurts his own state.”

The Jamestown (S.D.) Sun today reprints an editorial (”Coleman’s time has run out”) that ran last week in the Albert Lea Tribune — one of the earliest in the recent crop of Minnesota newspaper advice for Coleman. 

Also new today are in-state editorials from the St. Paul Pioneer Press (”we make the case for a state high court review”), the St. Cloud Times (”time to stop fight”), and the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Daily (”Certify Franken”). (Hat tip: Braublog)

Related: 
Give up, Coleman: Quotes from the election-contest courthouse and beyond
More free advice for Coleman from media, punditry
The conservative case for why Coleman should drop out
As world awaits order in senate trial, sideshows and catcalls continue
Drumbeat grows louder for Coleman to concede soon