Finding some balance

Well, I quickly regretted the effort to be generous to William Safire last week by suggesting that I'd give him a passing grade on his latest column — I cringed as soon as Ben Zimmer pointed out that the core point of Safire's piece had been laid out on the ADS-list a couple years ago (see here). It hadn't even occurred to me to check that angle and Safire's assistant reads ADS-l (or at least posts queries there from time to time). There's no good spin to put on that.

But then, the local paper ran this piece about PBS's new piece about the war on the press in this country. The article included this quote:

The great check and balance that was built into the Constitution is under challenge," says author and former New York Times columnist William Safire. "You've got to have a relationship between the government and the press that's adversarial … .

I agree.