We saw yesterday that the NYT had launched The Opinionator, a news/opinion/politics blog by former Slater Chris Suellentrop, which we've checked out and quite liked so far. Suellentrop, we have no quarrel with you. Godspeed.

But. Is it just me, or is the name a little...reminiscent of another recently-prominent blog? I refer, of course, to Opinionista, the anonymous-until-a-week-ago blogger who was outed by Gawker just before revealing herself via The Observer, not unlike how David Lat revealed himself in the New Yorker .

This is the thing: if the NYT has the wherewithal to publish a 3,147 profile of Lat in Sunday's paper (about equal to their Canada election coverage, harumph), then they probably have the wherewithal to check and see if their new name is muscling in on other territory (they wouldn't need to go much further than their own archives, actually). Yes, we're talking about the difference between the New York Times and someone's personal blog, but then again, we're also talking about two New York blogs, one of which has been mentioned repeatedly in various media across town, the other of which couldn't but have known that.

A note on the Lat profile: Like Suellentrop, I have no quarrel with the witty, knoweldgeable Lat, and I empathize deeply with some of the sad stuff he's lately gone through. But come on, people (all of youse), can we give Wonkette co-blogger Alex Pareene a wee bit more acknowledgement here? He's a bit more than just a "20-year-old New York University dropout" - he's a 20-year old writer who was hired to write a hugely popular, prestigious blog read by scads of influential people, because he's proven himself elsewhere and because he's good.

Yeah, yeah, disclaimer: I've met Alex and corresponded with him, like his writing and think he's goin' places. Ditto Opinionista, née Melissa Lafsky. I previously wrote about Chris Suellentrop on Fishbowl here, and found him Wookie-riffic.

The Opinionator [NYT]
Everyone's got an Opinion[ista] about anonymous bloggers [FBNY]