The New York Times apparently doesn't like the fact that its mostly-liberal editorial page and columnists get criticized by the horde of bloggers on the Internet, so they've decided to start charging -- $50 a year to read Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd -- beginning in September.

I don't anticipate this being really successful. I mean, if you really want to have your editorial opinion to be influential to the public at large, you don't charge big bucks to read the stuff.

On a related note, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the copyright-infringing pkarchive.org -- the free Internet repository for all of Krugman's columns. Up to now, "Bobby" has merely been infringing the New York Times copyright. If "Bobby" buys a subscription and then posts Krugman's columns on his Web site immediately, he'll essentially be taking big money from Pinch Sulzberger's pocket. I don't think that will stand.

*UPDATE* I just want to say that I concur with Jonah Goldberg's comment regarding the Times' decision. As opposed to charging for its editorials and columnists, the Times might want to consider instead charging for its Arts coverage -- mainly because I don't read those pages.