At times it's good to pause and admire what the New York Times does wonderfully well, when it does do it. I've excoriated the blunderbuss of Eighth Avenue often enough to say credibly, I hope, what TPM contributors and readers already know but need to affirm: Sometimes the Times reminds us that serious journalism requires more than instant videos, twitter alerts, reader feeds, and bolt-of-lightning insights; it requires climbing a tenement's stairs the second time to be sure of what's there, or making that last call to a possible source on one's list, or seeing the look on a campaign manager's face as you pop your question.

At times there's no substitute for an experienced reporter's going there and bringing both public memory and professional skill to the job -- especially when the story seems obvious and familiar. Telling the truth always takes time and resources to .

Corporate bottom-lining now cuts against giving reporters what they need, and media like TPM are striving to fill the breach and often succeeding. But three very different pieces in yesterday's Times show what it is we're all hoping to achieve.

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If anyone abetted Iranians' brave, breathtaking defiance of the anti-republican rot in the "Islamic Republic" of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last month, it was Barack Obama. George W. Bush had strengthened that regime by offending Iranians' national pride. Obama weakened it with his March 19 Persian New Year address and his June 4 Cairo speech, eight days before Iran's elections.

"The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations," he said on March 19, "but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization."

Enough Iranians took him up on this to remind the world that sometimes America's strength lies more in its civic depth than in its armed might. As Turkish scholar Ibrahim Kalin put it, "People see in [Obama - and, I'd add, in our 2008 election] something they would like to see in their own leaders, and that, in itself, creates huge expectations." Those expectations are still rising: Yesterday, major Iranian clerics called the election and the regime "illegitimate."

But now comes Joe Biden, raising different expectations.

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