On Nov. 6, The San Diego Downtown News (along with sister publication the Peninsula Beacon) printed an editorial I authored entitled “Barack Obama needs to shut his mouth.” The piece was meant as a cautionary look at the two-headed nature of this country’s economy and how I believe the president-elect (for whom I voted) sometimes tends to blur the distinction. While I think the article expressed that sentiment fairly well, the headline is obviously another matter. Many of you took vehement exception to what you see as its incendiary tone – and my own hindsight persuades me that your feelings are entirely justified. The piece was not reviewed by the publishers, David Mannis and Julie Mannis Hoisington; in fact, both parties have kindly spoken to me at some length on this matter, assuring me that they would have immediately scrapped the headline had they seen it in the proof process last week. As it was, a fellow Mannis Communications editor did take notice and lightly mentioned his surprise to me; for whatever reasons, I didn’t take his query to heart. That bit of neglect, I now see, has compounded the problem generated by my original turn of phrase. I extend my hearty congratulations to Senator Obama and his supporters on his victory, just as I did in my editorial — if he proves as capable a leader as he did a campaigner, this country stands to benefit in perhaps wholesale respects for the next four years (especially since his fellow Democrats now hold sizeable advantages in both Houses). As I said, I voted for him too, and I believe I did so for the right reasons. The headline, however, was and is a gross overstatement of my caution about his own choice of words on the state of the economy. I eagerly offer my apologies to the president-elect, to the Mannis Communications staff and management and, of course, to the Community Newspaper Group readership for the ill feeling that a little reflection could have easily avoided.