The LA Times' Ron Brownstein has long been my favorite reporter, so I'm glad to hear he's moving to the National Journal group, where he'll be able to once again do some reporting. Earlier this year, Brownstein was taken out of the news pages because his wife works for John mcCain. As consolation prize, they gave him an op-ed column, but in true media fashion, decided that they'd have to excise their best liberal to make the space, and so yanked Jon Chait's column. Brownstein, of course, had no interest in becoming a liberal bomb-thrower, so he kept doing the same smart, reported, and basically non-ideological work he'd always done, leaving the op-ed page without a distinctly liberal voice. So the Times news pages became worse and their op-ed page more unbalanced. Assuming Brownstein is replaced by good folks, this will be better all around.
