My sources tell me that the op-ed columnists of the NY Times are not happy campers being blocked from their biggest demographic: "the readers." The decision to put behind some of the most widely read opinion makers on the net is another major blunder for them. Since the wall has gone up, how often has Rich, Dowd, Krugman and the rest of the gang been linked to or talked about? I do remember Maureen's smack down of Judy Miller way back in October, but that's it. The right wing is coming out swinging for the fences now and are on a mission to label the Times as traitors for printing the spy story. Who will be able to fight back? I don't think another appearance on Charlie Rose by Arthur Sulzberger will have much of an impact, do you? They can't defend themselves if they can't be read.

Dowd on Vice:

"We start the new year with the same old fear: Dick Cheney. The vice president, who believes in unwarranted, unlimited snooping, is so pathologically secretive that if you use Google Earth's database to see his official residence, the view is scrambled and obscured. You can view satellite photos of the White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol - but not of the Lord of the Underworld's lair. Vice is literally a shadow president. He's obsessive about privacy - but, unfortunately, only his own.

She continues:

"Consider this: when Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, supported by President Ford, pushed a plan to have the government help develop alternative sources of energy and reduce our dependence on oil and Saudi Arabia, guess who helped scotch it? Dick Cheney. Then and now, the man is a menace."