The New York Times chooses John Tierney. Excellent choice.

Some of the stand-out classic pieces he has penned:

Recyling is garbage–making mincemeat of an environmental shibboleth.

When crutch for education is an anchor–challenging the educational conventional wisdom about bilingual education.

The Autonomist Manifesto–a rousing and politically incorrect ode to the car.

More on Tierney’s pro-free market writings here.

One important question is how Tierney will come down on key War on Terror and homeland security issues–racial profiling, immigration enforcement, detention of enemy combatants, etc. Will he depart from the civil liberties absolutism embraced by both Safire and the Times‘ editorial board, or will he stay silent, as David Brooks largely does?