I liked the column and good for him in writing what he did, but I found this graf a bit odd:
No one deserves the personal vituperation that regularly comes Dowd’s way, and some of Krugman’s enemies are every bit as ideological (and consequently unfair) as he is. But that doesn’t mean that their boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., shouldn’t hold his columnists to higher standards.
Both of these amount to something like a non-denial denial defense. So Dowd doesn’t deserve the personal viturperation that regularly comes her was because she falls into that subset of people we call “people.” Okay, but that leaves room for a lot of non-personal vituperation that she may only irregularly receive.
And as for Krugman, Okrent merely says that some of his critics are as ideological as he is and therefore as bad as he is. While I reject the notion that ideology and unfairness go hand-in-hand, Okrent is still saying that Krugman’s as bad as the crazies who criticize him. I’ll take that.