The NYTimes has become a laughingstock, but I suspect it will all blow over, because, you know, its heart was in the right place.

The little I've read about it suggests that Blair's race was just seen as icing on the cake of his apparent collegiality--what most of us would call "sucking up" to management. (The term "brown nosing" being particularly inapposite.) I'm not impressed that Blair really added much to real diversity, since he seems to have been about as Black as Colin Powell, if you know what I mean.

I've thought more than once about how most white males have dealt with discrimination all their lives, but not the kind the law cares about. Discrimination based on looks, family connections, not having the gift of being one of the guys, etc. This phenomenon is not talked about much. It's sort of like the fact that Ivy League Colleges give preferences to "legacies;" its basically just something that no one can do anything about, because it's a fact of financial life.

And then there's the fact that Blair, the son of a federal official, knew the Liberal Mind of the top brass at the Times better than they did themselves. Most of us, reading an intern applicant's statement that "my kindred spirits are the ones who became journalists because they wanted to help people," would write him off immediately as spreading it on a bit thick. Apparently, however, in the case of the Times, he knew his audience and this bull scat just warmed the cockles of someone's heart. And now we all know the rest of the story, and can add to the list of known ways to get ahead at the Times:

1. Be a gifted writer with a deep interest in the language and usage.

2. Be more arrogant than most self-respecting people could tolerate in themselves, and


B. be a thick leftie economics professor who looks like a Bolshevik.

When I figure out why Bill Keller has a column, I'll let you know.