When I'm bored and need a laugh, I sometimes check out the NY Post's editorials. I did so today and it didn't fail me -- just a hoot.

On this visit I was treated to a glowing send-off to Bill Safire, who has written his last Op-Ed column for the NY Times. Leaving aside that Safire was nowhere near as great as the Post suggests, the choice piece of hilarity comes from the following:

Many readers may have forgotten just how much public opposition there was to Safire's appointment: He came straight from the Nixon White House, where he'd been a highly regarded speechwriter (coining such phrases as "nattering nabobs of negativism"), leaving just as Watergate began to explode.
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He was an unabashed libertarian conservative, at a time when such opinions were not widely represented in journalism — particularly on the pages of the Times. Indeed, then-publisher Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger, to his everlasting credit, said he was hiring Safire to "bring to us a new and different point of view."

Does the Times ever get enough credit for hiring someone like Safire some thirty odd years ago? All we ever hear is how it's leftist, pinko, etc. And it would be one thing if the paper hired just any "unabashed libertarian conservative" back then, but the Times went ahead and hired a Nixon speechwriter during the mushrooming of the explosive Watergate incident. Quite gutsy, I would say.

The Washington Times, NY Post, FOX News -- can someone point out a similar such hire by these outfits? Where is the equivalent "unabashed liberal"? And please don't offer up wet-noodle Alan Colmes -- we all know he's not the equivalent of a snaggle-tooth, pitbull Safire, not even close.

Of course, this fact is completely lost on the clueless Post. Whereas the Times attempts to provide diversity of voices via their stable of columnists, the right wing rags do not, period.

Fair & balanced -- hilarious.