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With the debt ceiling presumably dealt with, you can sense folks fleeing town. The year is over; the new year begins in September. The opinion pages of the newspaper have, despite the terror and turmoil of the last few months, a suddenly sleepy quality. In The New York Times, the summer substitutes have begun to file; there's Diane Ackerman on the fate of the diamondback turtles at JFK Airport. Joe Nocera produces a heated, if belated blast at the terrorist Tea Party; we will soon, I suppose, be hearing about his country house on the lake. Other worthies of the commentariat are already filing from far-off, if nifty locales: Thomas Friedman in the Times took the opportunity to visit Greece a few weeks ago, and then flung dispatches about the fall of America back to New York. Maureen Dowd reads like she's been on holiday for months.
Times pundits have long had a tradition of writing about their snazzy vacations with that faux populism encouraged by a hot beach, a tall drink and Bill Keller's ego-boosting memos. Russell Baker, perhaps the greatest of Times columnists, regularly wrote from Martha's Vineyard, though he, rare among the punditocracy, had a sense of humor about himself that made it palatable to those of us mired in traffic, at work or stuck with the kids in a motel with broken AC. But Baker was a rare bird not seen lately at the Times. Most Times pundits really just want to show off their nice digs and hip lifestyle. And to do so, they'll suddenly get interested in the plight of Upstate New Yorkers, the natives of Maine, the trees of Wyoming or the joys (and anxieties) of their renovated pre-Revolutionary War cottage at the foot of the White Mountains with the tame deer and the Robert A.M. Stern annex. We will hear about the wines of Erie County, Pa.; we will get the usual dispatches about real estate and parties in Bridgehampton and pathetic neo-celebrity softball in Sag Harbor. 
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Bob Teitelman, editor in chief and a member of the company’s executive committee, is responsible for editorial operations of print and electronic products. Contact
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