DEBRA SAUNDERS: Nick Kristof is from New York and Kevin Cooper is guilty.

If you are not familiar with Kristof — better yet, if you are familiar with him — you have to read this Kristof take-down by Carl Cannon in RealClearPolitics. (Every graph has a prize inside.)

There’s a sad tale inside that says everything about Kristof

In 2002, Kristof was instrumental in stoking a lynch mob mentality against a private citizen whom the columnist identified as a likely suspect in the deadly anthrax attacks that killed several people and targeted key members of Congress. The innocent man, Steven Hatfill, was ultimately exonerated and paid a handsome settlement by the Justice Department and some media outlets. Hatfill’s lawsuit against the New York Times was dismissed for the Catch-22 reason that he was by then (thanks to the newspaper) a public figure. As I wrote in 2011, an FBI supervisor investigating the case, Robert Roth, placed Kristof’s more outlandish statements on a wall in the Washington field office. To buck up his agents, Roth added a statement of his own: “One of the best things that can happen to you is to have this type of person criticize you.”

This is so familiar to me as I’ve watched Kristof claim that authorities wrongly convicted Kevin Cooper in the 1983 slaughter of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and Christopher Hughes, 11, who was sleeping over with his friend Josh Ryen, 8, who was left for dead. The evidence against Cooper is overwhelming and courts repeatedly have upheld his guilty verdict.

Earlier: Oregon Official: NYT Columnist Nick Kristof Ineligible for Gubernatoral Run: “At some point, though, Kristof should  reallllly consider whether any of this is worth the effort. Kristof’s reliably on the Left, but so will any nominee Democrats produce in this primary, and most of his competitors have more experience in actual politicking than he does. Spending decades as a newsman and columnist at the NYT does not provide a solid grounding for executive potential in managing vast bureaucracies in state government.”