Journalists who saw the fool in John Danforth go on to great things

The New York Times last week announced that a new executive editor had been chosen. Jill Abramson, the paper’s managing editor since 2003, will take over for Bill Keller in September.

Abramson has a connection to Missouri politics. In 1994, while covering Washington for The Wall Street Journal, she co-wrote the definitive account of the political battle over Clarence Thomas‘ nomination to the Supreme Court. The book, Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas, was critical of U.S. Sen. John Danforth, depicting him as a brain-dead partisan during the process.