David Brooks, a frequent contributor to The New York Times and a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, has been named an Op-Ed page columnist for The Times. His column will appear twice a week beginning in early September...

Mr. Brooks, 41, has also been a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly, and a regular commentator on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Mr. Brooks's articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Forbes, The Washington Post, SmartMoney, The New Republic, Commentary and other publications. He is the author of "Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There," published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster, which next spring will publish his book about suburban life in America.

Hmmmm, could be an indication that the NY Times is getting the message. Brooks is brilliant, of course, and he hails from the much-demonized neo-Con periodical The Weekly Standard. They could have picked someone a bit more openly conservative (dare I say it - Ann Coulter) but with the Times, you take what you can get.