“The Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, is a pretty dodgy character from a Republican point of view,” said Barone. “I mean, this is a woman who was endorsed by the Working Families Party, which is basically front for ACORN … As we’ve seen, it’s an organization whose organizations have systematically aided and abetted child prostitution, as reported in the videos that Fox News ran — that other networks were finally forced to run, that Andrew Breitbart put on the Big Government Website. There is some reason for principled Republicans not to back the Republican nominee in a situation like that.”

First, Barone has cut out previous election results for everything but presidential races. This is a bit of a pain. A reader used to be able to thumb his copy of the almanac and see how a senator or governor or member of Congress fared in the election just passed and the election before that. No longer. Considering how many Democratic members of the Class of 2006 are targeted in 2010, it’s a real loss. (The book is 1,726 pages, 138 pages shorter than the 2008 edition.)

Second, Barone records the historic and anachronistically long presidential primaries of 2008 in a slapdash manner. Several states held binding caucuses and nonbinding primaries, such as Washington and Nebraska. Barone breaks out the data for the primaries, but not the caucuses. In the case of Idaho, which held a pivotal Feb. 5 caucus (“Obama’s success in this and other caucus states, particularly in the Midwest and West, provided his margin of victory over Clinton,” writes Barone), Barone mentions Obama’s 63-point caucus win in the context of Obama’s smaller 18-point win in the nonbinding May primary. Something I was really hoping would make it into this edition, the presidential primary vote broken down by congressional district, is nowhere to be seen. Trivia wins out over useful data.

Third — and this really doesn’t matter much — there are some truly strange photo choices. Consider:

Gov. Patrick isn’t actually demanding $1 billion ransom in order to shut off his planet-destroying laser, but you’d never know it.

“I am very excited and pleased to have the chance to join The Examiner at this challenging time for journalism and for our country,” Barone said. “I’m happy to have the chance to return to daily journalism and to have my writing appear in print throughout the Washington area.”

Subtext: U.S. News and World Report is going down. But this is an interesting continuance of the Examiner’s evolution into the city’s mainstream conservative paper, to the more expansive and outre conservatism of The Washington Times.

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Michael Barone, senior writer at U.S. News & World Report and principal coauthor of “The Almanac of American Politics,” said at a luncheon today that journalists went after Gov. Sarah Palin so fiercely because she decided to carry her youngest son, Trig, to term.

From Politico:

“The liberal media attacked Sarah Palin because she did not abort her Down syndrome baby,” Barone said, according to accounts by attendees. “They wanted her to kill that child. … I’m talking about my media colleagues with whom I’ve worked for 35 years.”

Barone has apologized since making the remarks earlier today, saying he was joking.

Here’s why I think it’s worth noting. The press has taken a lot of heat for aggressively digging into Palin’s record as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska, from Palin herself and some of her supporters. Even some journalists I know have asked me about the sheer volume of the coverage.

Let’s remember what happened.

After having months to pick his running mate, Sen. John McCain suddenly selected Palin after having met her just once. News reports suggested the choice was a purely political move meant to prevent a major Sen. Barack Obama bounce after the Democratic convention. Palin was a relative unknown, with a short record in statewide office, having been governor about a year and a half. But she was suddenly running to be vice president of the United States with a 72-year-old man with a history of health problems. There was a real chance she could end up stepping in as president.

Taking this into account, the media had a responsibility to take a hard look at her record. We’ve had 30 years to figure out who Sen Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate, is, what he believes and what kind of decisions he makes. But with Palin, the press had about two months to report out the information. The scrutiny of Palin was intense because it had to be.

Compounding the problem was the McCain campaign’s decision to isolate and insulate Palin. The once media-friendly politician was suddenly unreachable. At the same time, she was stoking a culture war on the stump by accusing the press of being disconnected with the people.

Maybe I just can’t take a joke. But for now, I think, we should have done more, not less.