Powerline's Steven Hayward, who reads the NYT so that the rest of us don't have to, reports an amazing, one-time occurrence at the Babylon Bee's inferior

even a stopped clock can be right, for one second, twice a day

A HICCUP AT THE NY TIMES

“Churchill once remarked, I think with Stanley Baldwin in mind, that “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”

“That could be a good description for today’s Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times. Kristof is usually a reliable liberal, but now and then he goes off the reservation. Today’s column:

What Have We Liberals Done to the West Coast?

As Democrats make their case to voters around the country this fall, one challenge is that some of the bluest parts of the country — cities on the West Coast — are a mess.

Centrist voters can reasonably ask: Why put liberals in charge nationally when the places where they have greatest control are plagued by homelessness, crime and dysfunction? . .

We [liberals] are more likely to believe that “housing is a human right” than conservatives in Florida or Texas, but less likely to actually get people housed. We accept a yawning gulf between our values and our outcomes. . .

[M]y take is that the West Coast’s central problem is not so much that it’s unserious as that it’s infected with an ideological purity that is focused more on intentions than on oversight and outcomes. . . Politics always is part theater, but out West too often we settle for being performative rather than substantive.

For example, as a gesture to support trans kids, Oregon took money from the tight education budget to put tampons in boys’ restrooms in elementary schools — including boys’ restrooms in kindergartens.

Hayward: “Despite all of Kristof’s caveats and pandering, I expect many Times readers will be upset by this column.”