The Times continues its descent into self-parody. This time it’s politics on the real-estate page, with yet another piece on William F. Buckley Jr.’s apartment:

“They had repartee described not only as brilliant but hilarious,” said Tom Holmes, the real estate agent saddled with the task of bringing to market what was probably the first — and may yet be the last — redoubt of Republican joie de vivre.
The stale self-righteousness that attaches to a certain brand of modern-day conservative was not for Mr. Buckley, a man, who — with his love of yachting, peanut butter and the Constitution — understood that the art of politics did not preclude the act of having fun.

The first and last “redoubt of Republican joie de vivre”? Really? This is 99.5 percent pure stupidity. I have seen, with my own eyes, Republicans having fun in places other than WFB’s apartment. As for “stale self-righteousness” and the Right — been to a university diversity seminar lately? Read any feminist authors, ever? Name “Al Gore” ring a bell? Ye gods, if you think Rush Limbaugh and Jonah Goldberg and the second and third comings of Roger Chillingsworth, you are simply out of your tree.

As a piece of journalism, though, this story makes me wonder: How much advertising would your average no-name real-estate agent have to buy in the Times before he got a single-source, content-free story to help him move a $25 million home in a down market? And this isn’t even the Times’s first WFB real-estate piece. Here’s another, from June. And one from May. And that’s typical New York, I suppose, and certainly typical New York Times: Never mind the man’s ideas, let’s talk about real estate.