NEWSWATCH: Comrade of the Powerful

Calling Walter Lippmann the last of the great political columnists is an implied rebuke to his successors, suggesting that they don't make them like that any more. Well, they don't. A man not afraid to be caught reasoning in print, Lippmann intellectually dominated the editorial pages of American newspapers for a half-century. On-the-other-hands were not for him: wrong he might sometimes be, but rarely uncertain.

Perhaps today's columnists lack Lippmann's talent and intellectual resources, but there is another reason why they cannot command Lippmann's prestige. This becomes evident in a reading of...