“Mitch Albom must have spent much of his brief paid suspension hanging out in cut-rate delis, because the Sunday column that marked his return to print was jam packed with cheap cheese and rancid baloney,” says an editorial in Detroit’s alt newsweekly, the Detroit Metro Times. The editors say they aren’t “certain what turned our stomachs most about the piece in the Free Press — Mitch’s absolute refusal to admit his true transgression, the attempt to downplay the significance of that ethical breach, or his blatant attempt to generate sympathy because of the battering he’s taken. Poor, poor Mitch.” They chide Free Press editor Carole Leigh Hutton, who had promised “transparency” with “how Albom has been dealt with.” But, they say, “Along with reinstating Mitch before the results of the paper’s story investigating the whole matter has appeared, Hutton’s silence has made the whole process as transparent as a brick wall.” They add, “We were, however, provided a clear glimpse of Mitch the Magnanimous in Sunday’s piece,” and cite Albom’s declaration that he was “willing to refrain from lashing back in anger, even at those lousy journalists who got some facts wrong when reporting about the scandal. Of course, if Mitch had been a stand-up guy and answered calls from reporters instead of being a weasel and refusing them, maybe some of those errors would have been avoided.”