1 If people want to pay money to have like-minded people with professional status reinforce their looney ideas and self-destructive national strategies, hey, it's their money.

2 Does it surprise that the New Duranty Times doesn't much appreciate it's own stock pages? http://www.michellemalkin.com/mt/oct05-tb.cgi/3478 Funny that . . .does the NYT really believe they can make up the difference by charging a paltry fee for comments? Yuk Yuk

3 My sentiments are with Graeme. It reinforces their "bubble". They effectively eliminate a multitude of readers who would expose fallacies in their arguments unless they're willing to pay to have their intelligence insulted. Now they want you to pay for an open exchange of ideas? Bwahahahaha! And they call conservative bloggers fascists?

4 I think of it as some sort of intellectual "hunkering down."

5 The NYTimes is declining fast.

6 You're all right on the money, but for Mike, I'll offer one correction; it's antiintellectual hunkering.

7 "anti-intellectual hunkering" Good one, IM! Hunkering like the dogs they are, I say.

8 I don't even think that NYT is particularly intellectual. True, they have big brand recognition which enables them to pay top dollar for staff, but that doesn't make for a more sophisticated product. I'm sure some of the best minds in the restaurant business are at the top ranks of McDonald's Corporation, and look at what they sell. NYT sells the same information every other news outlet sells. Their writers present it using good grammar and prose style, and they are one of the few remaining U.S. papers who hire editors who bother to catch errors. This is good, but since when does skillful composition make for "intellectual" writing? Being a good writer doesn't gift you with special understanding of what you're writing about.

9 Correct. Just because I can spell intellect doesn't mean I have one. (I'm leaving myself wide open here.)

10 Well Shannon, among the leftards, dogma passes for intellectuality.