What happened is that the Times has been forced to deal with its fox-guarding-the-henhouse policy of letting its op-ed columnists handle their own corrections of their own errors. That policy of institutionalized unaccountability has led, just as you would expect, to lots of errors and almost no corrections -- and to the illusion of infallibility for the likes of Paul Krugman.

Think how much less influential liberal icons like Krugman and Maureen Dowd will be when their errors must be admitted and corrected. Think how the threat of that will restrain them from making errors in the first place. And, most important, think how much less powerful their rhetoric will be when it can no longer rely of errors which, to be blunt, are frequently not "errors" at all -- but rather deliberate distortions, misquotations, and downright lies.

The Times' policy shift is subtle but significant. In a memo last week, editorial page editor Gail Collins declared,

"...while their opinions are their own, the columnists are obviously required to be factually accurate. If one of them makes an error, he or she is expected to promptly correct it in the column. After some experimentation at different ways of making corrections, we now encourage a uniform approach, with the correction made at the bottom of the piece."

What does this mean, exactly? It means that no longer can columnist corrections come in the form of what Times "public editor" Daniel Okrent calls a "rowback" -- the correct restatement of the error in a subsequent column, without reference to the original error or any admission that there even was an error in the first place. Columnists -- and reporters, for that matter -- love rowbacks because they can comfort themselves that they set the record straight, but without having to admit error.

Here's an example. I pointed out in a Krugman Truth Squad column last November that Krugman's November 4 column had foreshortened the following quotation by Republican representative George Nethercutt -- excising the critical final five words, to make it seem as though Nethercutt were indifferent to the deaths of American soldiers:

"But it's, it's, it's a bigger and better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day, which, which heaven forbid, is awful."

Having been outed in my column, Krugman ran a rowback in his November 11 column:

"Some say that Representative George Nethercutt's remark that progress in Iraq is a more important story than deaths of American soldiers was redeemed by his postscript, 'which, heaven forbid, is awful.' Your call."

Pretty slick, eh? No admission of the shameful distortion in the first column. That's down the memory hole. Instead, the correct restatement of the quotation is used as way to take another slap at Nethercutt, and at Krugman's critics at the same time. All hail Krugman the Infallible!

Under Gail Collins' new policy, however, it will have to read something like this:

"Correction: In my November 4 column, I foreshortened a statement by Representative George Nethercutt, omitting a phrase in which he said of the death of American soldiers in Iraq, 'which, heaven forbid, is awful.' Without that phrase, the misleading impression was given that Mr. Nethercutt is indifferent to the death of American soldiers. I regret any misunderstanding."

Will Collins really make Krugman -- and Dowd and all the rest -- change their self-serving ways? Maybe. In her memo, she writes,

"They are expected to correct every error. Anyone who refused to fulfill this critical obligation would not be a columnist for The New York Times very long."

Strong words. And in his Sunday column, Dan Okrent put Collins in a position in which she's going to have to take the heat if her new policy isn't followed. Okrent wrote,

"...it's [Collins's] assertion of responsibility that matters most. Critics might say her statement of policy is very gently phrased, but when I asked her if there was wiggle room, she was unequivocal: 'It is my obligation to make sure no misstatements of fact on the editorial pages go uncorrected.'"

It must be said, though, that Collins has never been anything more than a dutiful Times apparatchik when it comes to defending the illusion of her columnists' infallibility. On my blog The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid, I've twice documented (here and here) what amount to nothing less than blatant cover-ups of Krugman errors.

The trick, now, is to keep the pressure up -- here, at the Krugman Truth Squad, at The National Debate blog, and even at The Nation, where David Corn has urged correction of what he thinks are unadmitted errors by conservative Times columnist William Safire. It was nothing but pressure from people like these -- combined with the arrival of in-house watch-dog Okrent -- that got things moved this far at the calcified and self-satisfied Times.

So, Miss Collins, here's a little bit of pressure for you. Since you say your columnists "are expected to correct every error," when will we see a correction of Paul Krugman's misquotation of Vice-President Dick Cheney in his column last Tuesday?

As Krugman Truth Squad member Carol Vitucci pointed out to me, Krugman quoted Cheney saying that former terrorism czar Richard Clarke was "out of the loop." In fact, Cheney told Rush Limbaugh in a radio interview that Clarke "wasn't in the loop."

A tiny difference -- perhaps no difference at all when it comes to the essential meaning. Still, it's an error. And it's a misquotation of the Vice President of the United States. And an honest correction at the end of some future Krugman column would be just as effective as anything else in punching through his veneer of infallibility.

But, noooo! There's been no correction. In fact, the misquotation was repeated last Thursday in a Times news story by Elizabeth Bumiller. Apparently Timesmen and Timeswomen find it more satisfactory to get their quotes from Paul Krugman, rather than going to original source material -- especially when reading the transcript requires going to such distasteful places as Rush Limbaugh's site or the White House site.

Then on Friday, in a Times house editorial, suddenly the quote was printed correctly. No mention of the two prior misquotations. A rowback! So far Collins hasn't replied to my email to her about it. No surprise. She's in so deep on this one now, silence is her only alternative.

But, I think, in Dan Okrent we have a real ally, and his moral sanction will be more valuable than anything else in keeping pressure on the Times. He was sending a message in his column Sunday when he quoted me, and wrote extensively about the work of the Krugman Truth Squad on National Review Online. He's letting the Times know that he's listening to even its most hated critics -- and that the so-called "newspaper of record" isn't the only arbiter of truth.

When Okrent's 18-month term as "public editor" is over, let's hope that no one has any illusions anymore that the Times is, indeed, the newspaper of record. Stripped of that undeserved imprimatur, its power to unfairly influence public debate will be greatly diminished. The most powerful factor in the liberal media elite will be cut down to size -- at last.

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