The New York Times's Charles Blow had an interesting column the other day, and we mean that as a backhanded compliment. Blow opens by announcing that his intention is to transcend the "simplistic, black-or-white, conservative vs. progressive discussion around the dissolution of the traditional family and high single-parent birthrates" and instead "focus more on complex areas of causation."

That's awfully ambitious, if not impossibly so, for an 800-word column. And Blow ends up spending most of that space...