THE NEW YORK TIMES IS REFUSING TO COOPERATE WITH INVESTIGATORS looking into possible criminal actions by Jayson Blair.

I’m inclined to think that the U.S. Attorney’s interest in the Blair case is grandstanding, and that it represents an abuse of prosecutorial discretion. But even so, I think that Donald Luskin is right to point out the Times’ hypocrisy here:

Can you imagine the stink the Times editorial pages (i.e., the entire paper) would put up if Blair had been an employee of the Bush administration and the White House acted to block an investigation?

Or simply an employee of some other big corporation whose business involves the public trust and welfare, like, say, Enron.

I think that this will get worse for the Times before it gets better. Raines’ initial mea culpa (well, it wasn’t really a mea culpa, was it?) is starting to look more like a “modified limited hangout.”