Farewell to the Fifth Columnist

New York Times columnist John Tierney has filed his final piece for the paper's op-ed page. I can't link to it, though, because it's behind the TimesSelect wall. And therein lies a possible reason why Tierney is cutting his tenure short—he had the bad luck to launch the column just as the company was cutting off access to its site, limiting the impact Tierney's stories could have.

Whatever they do the next two years, I won't be here to kick them around. This is my last column on the Op-Ed page. I've enjoyed the past couple of years in Washington, but one election cycle is enough. I'm returning full time to the subject and the city closest to my heart: science and New York. I'll be writing a column and a blog for the Science Times section.

I hate to abandon my libertarian comrades here fighting in the belly of the beast, but this is the right moment to leave. After six years of libertarians reluctantly electing Republicans as the lesser of two evils, we've finally had enough. We've voted out big-government conservatism, and the result is the happy state of gridlock. For now, our work is done. See you in January in a new column on a new page.

A little more than a year ago Julian Sanchez interviewed Tierney about his gig.