When the Gray Lady hired William Safire, it set off a lot of nabob-nattering about the propriety of giving a column to a former PR flack who had worked for Nixon. 

Many speechwriters have become columnists, but none has matched Safire for his tenacious dedication to uncovering the truth.  Over the years, Bill Safire proved himself as the kind of columnist who reports on something greater than his opinion.  He wore out shoe leather to get to the bottom of things.  Opinions followed facts.

As newspapers give way to blogs–and The New York Times itself becomes a kind of uber-blog–it is a good thing to remember that the opinion business can begin with ground truth.