Not that being sorry goes very far. One-time Democrat turned polarizing pollster Matthew Dowd shares his feelings in the Times:

“[DOWD] I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things....”

Right. The old sit-down-with-the-guy-and-have-a-cocktail-wienie theory. I wonder what it is that Dowd finds so likeable about the man? The word "nuk-u-lar"? The fart jokes? The lying? Surveilling everybody including Aunt Molly? Shredding the Constitution? Did they share happy childhood memories of blowing up frogs?

Matthew, do tell! The Times editorial board is sorry, so sorry, too:

The Clinton people had difficulty distinguishing between the spin cycle of a campaign and the tone of governing. That seems quaint compared with the Bush administration’s far more menacing failure to distinguish the Republican Party from the government, or the state itself.

And if the "news" division of The World's Greatest Newspaper (not!) hadn't worked so hard to bring about the very Bush "menace" they decry today, I'd find their handwringing a lot more sympathetic.

Whether it was goring Gore, suppressing that the story that the bourgieos rioters in Florida 2000 were Republican staffers, giving Bush the pretext for war that he needed with Judy "Kneepads" Miller, or suppressing the story on massive, illegal, and unconstitutional warrantless surveillance until after election 2004, the Times is just as responsible for the Bush administrations's crimes and the destruction of our Constitution as any other Republican enabler.

If the Times really wants to make nice now, they could put some real reportorial resources into chasing down the administration's crimes. After all, they write:

Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it’s helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers’ money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq.

Now, to be fair--and here at Corrente we always strive to change the tone of American political discourse by being as completely fair as necessary--the Times covered all those stories. But they covered them as individual stories. Where's the overarching narrative? Where's the story that ties it all together?

NOTE Eesh. Could we get some coverage of this, please?