Article or Editorial? Times Talks of Desperate Bush Admin, U.S. 'Mired' in Iraq

As straight news articles go, it was a heck of an editorial that appeared on the front page of yesterday's New York Times. The ostensible subject of Bush to Bolster Abbas and Seek Peace Talks was President Bush's announcement Monday of "a regional peace conference this fall to be led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that would include high-level Arab envoys and their counterparts from Israel and the Palestinian West Bank."

All well and good. But in the course of the article, author Helene Cooper managed to work in these two swipes at the Bush administration:

The planned meeting, the first of its kind in Mr. Bush’s presidency, signals another pivotal shift for an administration that is desperately seeking some kind of foreign policy victory in the volatile Middle East that would draw attention away from the war in Iraq.

But now the United States is mired in Iraq and looking for a way to build good will among Arab allies that have pushed for America to re-engage in Middle East peace talks.

A bit of Googling reveals that author Helene Cooper is also a member of . . . the Times editorial board. Perhaps someone should remind Ms. Cooper that editorials are, at least in theory, confined to the editorial page. Then again, we are talking about the New York Times.

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net