P.J. O’ROURKE: The New York Times Hits Bottom. “Judging by what I’ve heard from my fellow conservatives, the issue is decided. The New York Times is a worthless, truthless, vicious institution. But I disagree. I think things are worse than that. . . . If we’re going to discuss dark, paranoid corners of the Internet that have an unwholesome influence on our national life, there’s the New York Times online.”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

O’Rourke, of course, is exactly right. Part of my Saturday routine is to buy a copy of the Times and then read it over lunch. This past Saturday, the Times was either sold out or no longer available at the mini-mart where I usually buy it so I got a copy of the Saturday/Sunday edtion of the Wall Street Journal instead. It was excellent! I’m not business oriented (could care less about who is buying out whom, whether pork bellies are going up or down, etc.) and so always resisted the Journal. But the news section was great and the “Review” section fabulous. The Times has now lost my $2.00 to the Journal.

This would strike fear into Pinch’s heart, if he had one. Another interesting sign of the NYT’s descent and — more significantly — the WSJ’s ascendancy is the huge brouhaha over Amy Chua’s parenting piece, which until very recently would have been something in the NYT, not the WSJ.