Where Left Is Right / The Old Site

Recently, I discussed a Frank Rich column in the New York Times. I said that the "Times Select" program introduced a few weeks ago -- pay for access to premium NYT content -- had, alas, put Rich behind a wall where he was inaccessible to those who opted not to pay for the privilege. Now I can add an example to the other side of the coin: an Op-Ed columnist who at least sometimes isn't worth paying for. Namely, John Tierney.

I've seen Tierney's writings reviled on other lefty sites as vapid, confusing, ill thought-out, and so on. But frankly (as with David Brooks), I myself have never seen much of anything worth commenting on. Until today's column, "A Very Special Scandal" -- which made me see a sort of hallucinogenic red.

The general subject of the column is Plamegate: Rove, Libby, Miller, Wilson, and of course Plame. (Omitted from Tierney's discussion, as from everyone else's, is the weirdly invisible Robert Novak.) Tierney covers some entertaining trivia about the fluctuating odds on Rove's and Libby's being indicted, per InTrade ("the online futures market that correctly called all 50 states in last year's presidential election and settled on Cardinal Ratzinger as the favorite four days before he was elected pope"):

On Saturday morning, the traders gave Rove and Libby a slightly better than even chance of escaping indictment.

By Sunday morning, it was a different story. The traders put the chances of indictment at 62 percent for Rove and 88 percent for Libby.

(As of this writing, the percentages are 59.9 and 69.9 for Rove and Libby, respectively.)

Then he wanders off into a muddled discussion of what, exactly, Rove/Libby might and might not be indicted for. Okay, I figured, we're all entitled to a little laborious meandering from time to time... And that's when I hit this passage:

For now, it looks as if the outing of Valerie Wilson was done by officials who didn't think it was illegal and believed they were replying truthfully to a partisan who had smeared them. Hardball politics isn't pretty, but it's not criminal, either.

Uh, John? "It looks"? To whom? "Officials who didn't think it was illegal"? "A partisan who had smeared them"?

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. This variation of the "Well, y'know, boys will be boys!" excuse stinks just as much now as it did in during the time of the first -gate scandal, in the 1970s. Particularly in Rove's case, all you have to do is look at the rest of the man's record to know it's never been a case with him of not thinking something might be illegal; it's always been the case that he doesn't care.

Excuse me while I dial back the sensitivity on my Times Select subscription.