Sullivan is right to point out that Reagan’s full sentence begins with a clause that seems to denote an exception and a complication. "In this present crisis," the president said, "government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem." I am happy to be corrected.

Why did it take so long?

I have no apology to offer for the time it has taken me to address Sullivan’s post. I had more important things to do. Anyway, my piece has been out online for only ten days and out in paper for only eight days, and I have known about Sullivan’s objection for only three days–a lifetime in the blogosphere, I know, but I do not live by its clock, since I cannot think by its clock.

The main thing: it’s corrected. By the same standard, my implication that the MSM suppressed the Mo Hassan story may have some broad truth to it, but CNN was on the case from the get-go and the simultaneous news of the Buffalo plane crash obliterated some of the usual media frenzy. I apologize for not understanding that at the time I wrote the post.