Andrew Sullivan and his conservative ilk should realize that we too — and despite easily falling on the “left-liberal” side of the coin — can never digest more than a word or two of Bob Herbert’s stultifying prose before falling asleep. It’s unfortunate, because we ride the C-train with the same class of forgotten gilded-age untouchables he so tediously purports to represent and agree with Herbert that the lives they (we) lead are far from hopeful. (We also wonder how many economists like Brad DeLong, for all of his rosy statistics, can say the same?) Liberals deserve better than Bob Herbert (Paul Krugman is hardly any better), but there has been a hole in our heart ever since Walter Benjamin was killed trying to escape the Nazis.