Can This Be? Hugh Hewitt on The L.A. Times Editorial Page? (I hope you can find it, by the way . . . .)

Hugh Hewitt

One of my Sunday rituals (well, most Sundays) it to glance at the L.A. Times editorial page to see if there are any interesting signed editorials. I automatically skip the unsigned ones because I have found them to have something interesting and unpredictable to say exactly once in the last ten years. I also skip Robert Scheer when he appears; I have never found him to say anything that was not a predictable left-wing rant. Usually he is laughably over the top.

But today-- today!-- there is a piece by Hugh Hewitt criticizing the Times. The introduction to the column describes it as "an experimental column in which the Los Angeles Times invites outside critics to slap around a Southern California newspaper that has a two-part (or bigger) Sunday Calendar section." (Huh? I don't get the Calendar reference.)

It's a fine example if Hugh's work and a must-read.

One caveat, however: There is some reason to believe that this, the Times' first such effort at allowing serious outside criticism, is, well, a little half-hearted. I saw Hugh's piece in the print edition and then went on-line to find the link to use on this blog. Lo and behold, the Hewitt column was nowhere to be found in the Times op-ed section, at least in the on-line edition. Nowhere-- even though that's the section where it appears in the print edition. I finally had to do a search of today's paper for the word "Hewitt" to find the piece, which is listed among Times "articles."

In other words, you really have to hunt to find Hugh's "article" in the Times on-line. Oh, well. There will be plenty of links to it anyway. And the Times deserves a lot of credit for allowing such critical commentary. I hope it lasts and that they pay attention.