Morning News: Should We Laugh or Cry?

USA Today marks its first quarter-century today. Richard Pérez-Peña’s story in the Times hails the upstart newspaper for a recent series of tough stories about underequipped American troops in Iraq, and one must grudgingly concede that its embrace of microarticles and graphics have probably contributed to a (slightly) better-informed electorate, at least among traveling businessmen. But it is also a testament to the degredation of thoughtful leisure in this country. Without a standard – however disregarded in practice - of carefully cultivated critical reflection, a society as big and complicated as ours is bound to wind up in some “inexplicable” messes, such as ill-conceived wars and exploding deficits.

In short, there is still nothing of the long-range frame of mind at USA Today.