Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Wednesday, at last!

Nieman Journalism Lab: On innovation: There's the NY Times. And then there's...

Maureen Dowd: The A student aces her hearing.

Not many women can talk about "the pathogen area" with such authority and yet femininity.

Not many men do their homework as thoroughly as she does.

Mona Charen: The Democrats are in control and I'm scared.

Tony Blankley: The Democrats are in control, and they're scared.

Amy Walter: Well, despite retirements and Bush's legacy, maybe 2010 won't suck for Republicans. You never know.

Salena Zito:

Here is another thought: If you're the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, do you spend cash trying to beat Specter when you have 60 votes and he votes with you sometimes anyway? Or, do you win Florida, defend Illinois, and go for Ohio? That may give Specter room to be slightly more conservative.

Kathleen Parker:

How many consultants can dine on the dime of a tanking economy? A new poll by Tina Brown's Daily Beast and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates confirms that the Sarabeth's pair and my niece are not isolated anecdotes but are part of a trend no one would have imagined a few years ago. "Gigonomics," Brown calls it.

The poll, conducted online among 500 employed Americans over 18, found that a third are working as freelancers or in two jobs. Of those who call themselves freelancers, 58 percent previously had a staff position with the company for which they're now doing "gigs."

This not-so-rosy scenario raises questions for which there are no ready answers. How long will it last? What if they can't find even temp work?

Tom Friedman: On educating Hama, Hezbollah and as afterthought, everyone else.

Jay Bookman:

If President Bush himself wasn’t driving it with repeated appearances, culminating in Thursday night’s speech to the nation, the current obsession with assessing his legacy would begin to feel like piling on. There’s just not much good to say about the last eight years.