Changes to a newspaper's editorial team rarely make the news but the retirement of William Safire, often billed as the New York Times's token conservative, has set the bloggers talking. A Pulitzer prize winning commentator, he joined the paper in 1973 after working as a speech writer for Richard Nixon. Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo recalls reading – and disagreeing with – Safire for more than 20 years but being less impressed by his columns on WMD intelligence and Iraq. The most unread blog on the internet. Ever, another liberal read, wonders what will come next: "With him gone, that leaves the rational conservative count down to about one." Glenn Reynolds, the man behind Instapundit and a former Guardian Unlimited columnist, has an idea how to fill the space. No, not himself but a rotating stable of bloggers.
Bloggers would surely love it, but the New York Times might differ.
