Just asking…

So, just a thought: In the perhaps best example of establishment navel gazing we’ve seen in quite a while, the New York Observer has a lengthy article on the realignment of the New York Times op-ed writers.

We were struck by this passage:

And Ms. [Maureen] Dowd ended up on Saturday, paired with Mr. [John] Tierney. Long ago, the two dated, in the days when both worked at the Washington Star. Mr. Tierney said that the two didn’t discuss politics much while they were an item. Now, he said, professional necessity may call for political discussion.

“If we are writing about the same topic on the same day, we’ll talk to each other and make sure we’re not saying the same thing,” the libertarian-contrarian Mr. Tierney said. “But there’s not much chance we would say the same thing.”

Did Ms. [Gail] Collins have the past in mind when she paired the two off? “I can’t believe you’re asking that,” Ms. Collins said. “That’s a bad question.”

Notice that Collins, the paper’s editorial page editor, didn’t actually DENY that she placed them there because they once dated. She managed a patented Scott McClellan Deflection Response that while seeming to provide an answer actually says nothing.

Is it a bad question, Gail, because it’s right???? If that’s her logic, is there something about the new Sunday pairing of David Brooks and Nicholas D. Kristof that we should know about?

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