LAT Picks Up Weekly Standard Editor

Weekly Standard contributing editor David Gelernter got off to a great start as the LATimes' newest regular columnist.

His outstanding and patriotic column, Soldiers Do Us The Honor, was the second-most-emailed piece in today's LAT, trumped only by an article on the settlement of a 30-year coastal access battle between the California Coastal Commission and producer David Geffen.

An excerpt from Gelernter's column; be sure to read the whole thing:

A few weeks ago, I spoke on the pro-Bush side of an informal debate at Yale, and an imposing middle-aged man with fierce white hair came up afterward to ask me where I got the nerve to support a president who sends young soldiers to their deaths? (Lots of approving nods.) By accusing President Bush of extorting something that soldiers have freely offered, he slandered the president and stole honor from the soldiers. ...

A 17-year-old boy tried to explain to the white-haired man (in his straightforward, soft-spoken way) that those soldiers had chosen to be where they were; had understood and accepted the dangers; loved life just as much as the man did, but had different ideas about how to live it. The 17-year-old mentioned that he and a friend planned to join the Marines when they finished college. But he couldn't change the Bush-hater's mind.

I had a stake in the argument: the 17-year-old is my son.

Not to be lost is consideration of why the LAT has brought Gelertner on board. Perhaps there is a remaking on the way, an acknowledgement that they have gone too hard left and needs to balance its way back toward middle.

If so, that's nice. But it won't work until leftist, anti-American bias is purged from the news columns.