New PD editorial page editor

Last week I wrote about the Plain Dealer editorial page moving from center-right to center-left during the Bush years. Well, it's going to keep moving left.

Brent Larkin, the editorial page editor, is retiring in May after 17 years on the job. Elizabeth Sullivan, the paper's foreign-affairs columnist, will take over the page.

Sullivan wrote a lot of critical columns about the Bush Administration and the Iraq war. While the editorials under Larkin reflected a sort of sad disappointment toward Bush, Sullivan was angry. A recent piece of hers about Dick Cheney is a good example. (Not that there wasn't a lot to write about -- 25 U.S. senators recently said this about Donald Rumsfeld, another frequent target of hers.)

These archives of Sullivan's recent print columns and online columns include lots of pieces with a more moderate take, including a nice story on George Voinovich. But overall, I think her appointment means the editorial page will become more reliably liberal.