Frank Rich's weekend column is now up on the New York Times website in the "TimesSelect" area. I'm on the 14-day free trial of the service so I've read it. It's about the Bush administration's propensity for staffing government bureaus with cronies of dubious competence, and also about how anyone who tries to blow a whistle or buck the official line gets demoted or fired. Not one of Mr. Rich's best but worth a read.
What interests me now is whether it will stay "pay-only" or if free links and repostings will appear across the Internet. This last week, the columns of Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, David Brooks and others in the TimesSelect area have turned up where they could easily be read by those who aren't paying the Times fifty balloons a year. I haven't yet decided if it's worth it to me for the other perks but if all the opinion columns are going to be available to me anyway, that will obviously weigh heavily in my decision.
So I'm watching to see if this Frank Rich column is going to be an exception. Let's see how long before someone finds a way to get it without being a subscriber.