The only reason we ask is that in a New York Observer article about the quickening news cycles and how the more serious work of newspapers no longer drives the debate, Keller mocks the media attention showered all over the McCain camp's phony “lipstick on a pig” attack last week. The Times' executive editor laments how, “The simple-minded silliness of lipstick-on-a-pig filled at least one cable news cycle.”

The thing is, according to Nexis, the transparent lipstick controversy was mentioned in at least twelve different Times articles or columns during the last week.

Maybe the Times isn't quite as serious as Keller would like us to believe.