Apparently, you haven't been looking too closely at the editorial page during those 35 years. This is no surprise (f*cking or otherwise) but part of a long pattern. Here is only one example e.g. the Washington Post's editorial from January 1991 supporting the Congressional resolution authoring George H.W. Bush to go to war. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the WP also initially supported the Kosovo crusade as well as the Vietnam War. I don't recall right now weather it initially supported the second Iraq War but believe it did.
That’s whether not weather.
Kosovo was a NATO operation and the Dems were in charge. Of course they supported our involvement there to stop ethnic cleansing. As far as Vietnam was concerned, I am sure the WP supported LBJ initially. If you recall, the pretext for our entering the war in a big way had to do with an attack against our warships in the Gulf of Tonkin.
What makes the WP support of an increased troop level in Afghanistan surprising is that the left opposes it and there is growing oppostion by the American people. Biden is the one carrying Obama's water on this one,i.e., against any significant troop level increase.
Do you subscribe to the WP? Do you know how partisan they really are, e.g., the "macaca" destruction of George Allen or the current attempt at destroying Bob McDonnell on a 20 year old thesis? How many Reps has the WP endorsed to be President in the past 30 years?