INTELLIGENCE, OR DECEPTION? William Sjostrom says that Nick Kristof is being disingenuously coy with his unnamed sources. Maybe if he admitted that they’re associated with CounterPunch and similar loony groups people would find his argument less persuasive, eh?

Kristof is trying to pass off a fairly left-wing group as a group of non-partisan “professionals”. Remember Katie Couric’s description of MoveOn, a very left anti-war group as simply an outfit “started by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs frustrated by the political process”? This is the same kind of scam.

I wonder if Bill Keller will exercise some adult supervision.

UPDATE: I’m tempted to simply say that Dan Kennedy is naive. But I think that if Bill Keller thinks the sloppiness and dishonesty that have come to mark the Times op-ed pages are hurting the brand, something will be done, especially given that the Times’ sliding reputation has gotten the attention of the owners.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kennedy emails that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. is Maureen Dowd’s biggest fan. In which case the Times’ troubles are only beginning. . . .

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: In Kennedy’s column today (same URL as above) he thinks he’s “caught” me making a mistake. But that’s based on his rather gotcha-oriented reading of what I said, and what he said. I’m hardly the only one to think that Bill Keller’s accession might bring about changes. In fact, newspaper professional Matthew Hoy suggests that Keller’s accession should lead to changes with columnists, just as I did. Is Hoy making a “rookie mistake” too? Or is Kennedy trying a bit too hard to score points here? I link. You decide.