All the Hypocrisies Fit to Print

A few days ago, the NYT published this editorial (one of the last to be freely available on their web site) calling on Senators to vote against Judge Roberts for Chief Justice. The piece was an amazing bit of sophistry, describing Judge Roberts in glowing terms: "Few lawyers in America can compete with Mr. Roberts in professional accomplishments."; "Mr. Roberts could be a superb chief justice." and "If the test were legal skill alone, Mr. Roberts would certainly pass."

My first response to this last line was to think that someone ought to look at what they had to say when Ruth Bader Ginsberg -- a great legal mind on the far other side of the ideological spectrum. Fortunately, it didn't take long for Matt Barr at New World Man to point out that that's exactly the standard the NYT considered relevant in 1993.

No wonder they are planning to hide their editorials behind a pay-per-view firewall.

UPDATE: James Taranto is, of course, all over this.