An Ass Of M And K

Mickey Kaus has it better than the rest of us. He doesn't have to read -- or remember -- what he writes. Witness:

May 8, 2003:

"As Slate's Eric Umansky notes, evidence is now emerging that the New York Times did, in fact, explicitly relax its standards when it hired Jayson Blair. (I'd previously assumed that Blair was no less qualified than dozens of non-minority hires. I seem to have spoken too soon.)"

May 5, 2003:

"The NYT apparently has run a minority internship program that has the effect--since the internships routinely lead to job offers--of hiring minority reporters right out of college, without the customary years of seasoning at smaller papers. Blair seems to have been hired by the Times (after an internship) before he even graduated from college. ... I'm not saying there are no countervailing benefits to race preferences in journalism -- there are even benefits, such as ability to get stories white reporters can't get, that might not exist in other professions. I'm just saying that people should also acknowledge that there are costs, and that one of those costs is almost certainly a) more cases of African-American reporters who screw up, and b) uncertainty about whether a program of no special-preferences might have averted any particular screw-up before it turned into a credibility- and career-damaging incident. ... There's also the distinct possibility that the costs outweigh the benefits even for the intended direct beneficiaries such as Blair. In the long run, the NYT doesn't seem to have done him any favors--not to mention the effect on other African-American reporters who now have to unfairly labor under the sneaking suspicion that they are potential Blairs. .."

.Follow that? Kaus now says he "previously assumed" that Blair was no less qualified than "non-minority" reporters the Times hired. In fact, Kaus previously assumed -- and stated -- that Blair was hired through a internship program that hires minority reporters "without the customary years of seasoning" of previous work at smaller papers. He also says that Blair was "the intended direct beneficiary" of a "race preference." And that the Times "doesn't seem to have done" Blair any favors, suggesting that the Times was trying to do Blair a favor. (Not to mention the idiotic Blair as Utah truck analogy.)

So, Kaus not only assumed -- but stated -- that Blair was less qualified than other Times hires and the direct beneficiary of a racial preference.