Not that Bill Kristol can ever be replaced, but the New York Times has finally found a new conservative friend for David Brooks on the op-ed page! As usual, the pick is a white male, but for the first time it’s a young and dashing white male (sorry, Tom Friedman!) So let the record show that after Wonkette wrote in a post about the Times on October 23, 2008, “Just hire Ross Douthat and get it over with,” the Newspaper of Record had no choice but to comply. Congratulations, Ross! [Sigh] Why did they have to pick such a non-clown? [NYT]

FAME AND RICHES: Whoa hey what’s this, your male associate editor woke up in the SINGLE DIGIT HOURS of morning, an all-time first, to participate in his very first “Crappy Hour” on the ladies’ blog, Jezebel. The topic was, “politics.” [Jezebel]