For all his faults (slavery, the most egregious) Garry Wills has written that George Washington was “a virtuoso of resignations,” giving up power twice, after the war and after his second term as president.

Maybe he could be an example for all future Prince's?

What has the times learned from that experiement that was TimesSelect? How will the NYT "soft" metered paywall differ from that of the FT, which everyone seems to regard as the most successful iteration of paywalls?

Brian, could you please ask Bill Keller to respond to Glenn Greenwald's (and others) high profile criticism of the NY Times, and their willful deception of their readers at the request of the White House?

The NYTimes obeyed a WH request to sit on the knowledge that CIA operative Raymond Davis in Pakistan was not simply a diplomat -- even though this information was in foreign media, but then the NYTimes went further and made up facts to present to their reader's to bolster the government's claims about CIA operative Raymond Davis.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/21/nyt

Glenn wrote:

"It's one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives. But here, the U.S. Government has spent weeks making public statements that were misleading in the extreme -- Obama's calling Davis "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- while the NYT deliberately concealed facts undermining those government claims because government officials told them to do so. That's called being an active enabler of government propaganda."

The revolutionary leaders and dictators that arose in Africa post-colonialism appear to have a particularly very hard time separating themselves from the idea that "L'etat" isn't "moi."

Please don't make this a puff piece, Brian. Of all the guests you should throw softball questions to, this isn't the one.

Is this he guy who ridiculed Fox News' slogan, "Fair and Balanced," while his newspapers slogan is "All the News that's fit to Print" ??

Mr. Keller is the son of former chairman and chief executive of the Chevron Corporation, George M. Keller. Chevron obtained lucrative deals for Iraqi oil directly as a result of the US invasion of Iraq. Mr. Keller beat the war drums for that invasion, unexpected for a self-described liberal. Utter coincidence, Mr. Keller?

Does Mr. Keller still support Judith Miller's inaccurate reporting about Iraqi WMDs that Bush administration officials pointed to as supporting their decision to go to war?

Also, can Mr. Keller please explain how the Times can be trusted to report objectively on the CIA when the Times has had a longstanding policy of having its reporters give full cooperation to the CIA? Or has that policy changed since Carl Bernstein exposed it in 1977, and if so, when?

With all due respect, as Executive Editor of the Times, is Mr. Keller so in need of an outlet that favorite existing columns, such as On Language, must be eliminated?