November 24, 2023
In the winter of 1983, I was 25 and working at The New York Times as an editor on the op-ed page. In those days the Times’s staff for editing outside daily commentary was tiny—four people—and I was responsible for most of the pieces on domestic policy, then, as now, my principal professional interest. The pay was handsome ($110,000 in today’s dollars), and I loved living in New York City—then, as now, a powerful magnet for recent college graduates. It was a dre...