Times/Globe Page 1 - Separated at Birth, United in Barack

At first, I thought my hangover might have been worse that I thought. I did have a long night with some of Heidi's work crew (a fabulous dinner at the Grapevine in Salem, by the way, check it out).

I realized that, while my eyes were bleary, I wasn't seeing double - this Sunday morning's Boston Globe and New York Times do both have front page features on Barack Obama's days at Harvard Law School. Here's the Globe story. Here's the Times' take.

Coincidence? Something tells me it's not. Collusion? Doubt that too.

My guess - the Globe picked up that the Times was in town doing a Harvard Law scrub on Obama and quickly dispatched two of their better and faster-working reporters to bang something out. Both features are well-done and strikingly similar. But I'm sure that has more to do with the fact that they talked to a lot of the same people and are probably both pretty close to what really happened to Obama at Harvard Law. No mystery there.

But I'm sure some will jump to oddball conclusions that this means the Globe and Times are sharing more than profits. It's silly to think this means the Globe and Times are fronting Barack together. Chalk this one up more to hometown pride by the Globe not wanting to be scooped on a presidential campaign feature in their backyard than any kind of grand scheming.

Of course, the Globe did beat the Times to the single best bit of info in either story - that Obama still owes excise tax and parking tickets in Cambridge. Why this wasn't pulled out into an amusing sidebar, I don't know. Could have been great opposition research turned on it's head story - here's a candidate for the presidency who has already admitted in an autobiography to doing cocaine but ... shock of shocks, he doesn't pay his parking tickets!

Or maybe that's the hangover kicking back in....