BLAIR HOUSE.

One short year ago, Jayson Blair was, for all that readers of the Times knew, a reporter in good standing, and Howell Raines was the paper's triumphantly successful, though not well-loved, executive editor. The rather abrupt pace of journalistic history in this case is worth keeping in mind, because Blair has just published a memoir that is sure to set off a great reconsideration of last spring's succession of dramatic events at the Times: Blair's resignation, the paper's printed exposure of his amazingly extensive journalistic misdeeds, and the resignations of the paper's top two news executives, Raines and Gerald M. Boyd, the managing editor. In theory, the publication ...