Baseball is a pretty sight and a nice experience, win or lose, particularly if it is watched in a nice park.

Now I worry. If people ended up liking me, did I do the job wrong? So I decided they didn't end up liking me - they ended up being able to deal with me.

Closing one's ears to the complaints of partisans would also entail closing one's mind to the substance of their arguments.

I'm saying that the WMD reporting was not consciously evil. It was bad journalism, even very bad journalism.

That first week, I also went to Washington. That was really tough. I sympathize with those Washington figures who have to face 40 Times Washington bureau reporters. They ask hard questions and they're relentless. And they were quite suspicious and quite dubious about me.

If you really hate George Bush, you don't want to read about his hobbies or that he's nice to his friends or that he's good company at dinner.

But I think it's undeniable that the Times is a liberal paper.

I know there are reporters who ridicule pundits.

The pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true.

I believe the Times is a great newspaper, but a profoundly fallible one.

Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is.

I'm afraid we'll see reporters stop chasing quotes around the same time dogs stop chasing cars.