As I fell asleep last night, I was livid. I was all set this morning to go on a rant asking if nothing was sacred anymore, if all of journalism had gone the way of The National Enquirer and US Weekly � that is, to pot.

I couldn't believe Jayson Blair was hired by Esquire. I learnt it last night on The Daily Show (though I was falling asleep and I can't remember if it was Jon himself who told me or Lewis Black � you know, because the news fell through the cracks � but I suspect it was the latter. I was all set to blow up about how a fiction-writing, plagarising (well, maybe he didn't plagarise) bastard could not only get hired by the New York Times, then get fired for making shit up, and then get hired by the likes of Esquire and Jane. But TDS wasn't completely forthcoming � I was under the impression that Blair was hired as a staff writer, or to write regular columns for the magazines. Turns out, it's just freelance work.

While I'm still a little annoyed that he'll continue to get work (though he's claiming to be donating his Esquire compensation to charity) and positive recognition for his misdeeds, I can understand the two publications' reasons for commissioning the pieces. For Esquire, it will be a short review of a movie about another journalist fired for making shit up. ForJane, it'll be a piece about pressures in the workplace (where he'll no doubt portray himself as some kind of victim).

So I was all set to sit down today and write a letter to my thin (think fishing line) contact at a major national leisure magazine, taking the tone of "if this guy can continue to get work, why the hell can't I?" But now that would seem stupid.

Call me evil, but I have little sympathy for the guy. Does he realize how great a position he was in? How many aspiring writers and journalists would love to do anything in a writing/reporting capacity for the New York Times? I'm sorry, pal, but if you've got some sort of problem � depression or whatever � to the point that you're not going where you say you're going and writing stuff that, by submitting it, you're saying you were there and reported on it, then you have to realize something is not right about that. If he had just been open and honest and gone to an editor, a superior, he trusted, the Times, I'm sure, would've helped him. Instead, he continued to lie and play out the fantasy and when it was all over, four people had lost their jobs. So maybe I'm being a little harsh and jumping to conclusions by assuming that his essay for Jane on "pressures in the workplace" will serve as an outlet to cast him as a victim, but it's a reasonable conclusion, I believe. I mean, come on: "workplace pressures"???? Helloooo.

Still, every time I read an entry in the The Best American series put out each December (sports writing, travel writing, non-required reading � which I just finished this morning and has some fabulous pieces in it), I think, "Damn, I would love to do this." I also think, quite often, "I could do this" but not in a condescending, I-could-do-this-better-than-he-did kind of way, just a this-could-be-me manner.

Someday. Until then, you're stuck with me, anonymously.