Glenn Reynolds asks whether Joshua Treviño, my friend (and RedState co-founder!), is “establishment enough” to be the conservative editorial columnist–or one of them, anyway–at the New York Times. May I offer my sincere and profound hope that Josh is selected precisely because he is not an establishment figure?

I suppose that if the New York Times’s was in good financial shape thanks to all of the establishment positions it has embraced, it would serve as an argument for further establishment thinking when it comes to selecting the next conservative columnist. But of course, the New York Times is not in good financial shape. As such, establishment thinking is not and should not be the order of the day. Quite the contrary; the New York Times should shake things up rather dramatically so that perhaps, just perhaps, it can pick itself up off the mat and become a consequential news organization again.

Josh can help them do that. He is iconoclastic in his writing but in the best way possible, having carved out a niche all his own and having won the respect of his readers in the process. He is firm in his convictions and equally firm when he believes that it is necessary to call out his own side of the philosophical divide. He has a wonderful and eloquent way with words. And he won’t pussyfoot on the issues of the day.

The New York Times has nothing to lose in picking him. They have everything to gain. It would be a bold, unsettling, momentous choice to give Joshua Treviño the conservative slot for the Times’s editorial page. And quite frankly, the Times needs to be bold and unsettling if it wants to re-establish itself as the newspaper of record once again.