After years as America’s best Wal-Mart reporter — a job at least as important as being a war correspondent, in my book — Michael Barbaro of the New York Times turned to New York city politics well over a year ago, and he has just landed an interview with would-be Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., the erstwhile Tennessean Blue Dog who for reasons that remain obscure to me believes that New York voters are in desperate need of his unique skill-set. This is Jim Geraghty’s turf, I know, but this interview has to be read to be believed.