Paper of Record? Not lately. New York Times-bashing is the blogger's meat, and one of the sharpest, and earliest, sites on Times patrol was Ira Stoll's Smarter Times (which is lately overtaken by events - Mr. Stoll having taken up with the Sun crowd). Drudge links to this, the most mainstream of the shots the Times has taken lately. But what of it? It ain't news. I had a PoliSci prof ages ago who referred to the Times as the Red Rag of the Hudson - and he didn't just mean the editorial content, which is virtually indistinguishable from the dreadfully earnest whining at any number of big city papers. Is it the blogging phenomenon that is bringing this out in the open? The timing makes it an interesting, but unsubstantiated, parallel. But I don't think that explains it all. I'd like to think that the major force is the public's increasing unwillingness to accept the holier-than-thou diktat of the Howell Raineses of society.