Can Someone Please Explain

why Andrew Sullivan is getting a free pass as he rages against Howell Raines and Rick Bragg?

He is sitting in judgment and passing harsh sentences. Yet he never mentions that---

As editor of the New Republic he was conned by both Ruth Shalit (plagiarism) and Stephen Glass (mean spirited fabulist).

He wrote in defense of Slate when Michael Kinsley and Jack Shafer were conned by Jay Forman ("Monkey Fishing", etc). When it was his pal Mike he wrote


"I have to say I found the original piece--which conjured up images somewhere between Curious George and Mad Max--highly entertaining. I assumed it was probably a tall tale, but it was told so well I didn't really give a damn. And, since it wasn't addressing earthshaking matters like Republican-sponsored tax breaks for shipbuilders or a patients' bill of rights, I wasn't exactly scouring the prose for evidence of malfeasance. It was a jolly piece of colorful and clearly inebriated reminiscence. So what if it was embroidered a little, or even a lot? How many jolly tales aren't livened up a bit in the retelling, especially when the original expedition was conducted with a fair amount of mental lubrication?

"Turns out I was wrong. This was a grave and terrible offense. All the usual journalistic pooh-bahs descended from their pedestals to tsk-tsk. Suddenly, spanking the monkey took on a whole new meaning. The story merited a front-page, above-the-fold 'expose' in the business section of The New York Times and an apologia from one of the most talented journalists around (and a former writer of this column), Michael Kinsley. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing that magazines or newspapers should publish fibs. Kinsley wouldn't either. (Tedious full disclosure: I revere and like Kinsley, and he helped give me my start in American journalism.) But this absurd non-scandal is a symptom of something now sadly endemic in the culture: the forest/trees issue. Or, to put it another way: Can we please get a sense of perspective?"

Hard to believe that this is coming from the man now frothing about Raines, cronyism, and datelines.

And in light of the contradictions he has shown over time, shouldn't we pay a little more attention to the fact that Raines canceled his contract to write lucrative essays for the Times Magazine?