The New York Times’s Michael Gordon was just on Late Edition (along with former Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kuba, who is always worth listening to, and Michael Ware, who is insufferably arrogant and more opinionated than any dozen opinion columnists combined). Gordon really does deserve great credit. He is a hard-boiled, hard-digging, hard-driving reporter. He knows his stuff. He takes pain to provide a balanced picture.

For example, while he conceded Wolf Blitzer’s premise that the political situation in Iraq is far from satisfactory, he pointed out that according to American intelligence, the situation would be far worse were the U.S. to withdraw too soon.

He also stressed that there has been a dramatic and positive change in the military situation – as a result of the new strategy implemented by the new U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

It’s unlikely that these points would have been made had Gordon not insisted on making them. Gordon has a piece in the Times’s Sunday magazine. The headline: “The Former-Insurgent Counterinsurrency.” I haven’t read it yet but I certainly will.

Do the Times’s editorial-page writers read Gordon (or John Burns, for that, matter)? One really has to wonder.