In an editorial with the misleadingly bland title "Legal Loopholes in Iraq," the Times editorial page took a leap into left-wing logic Monday, referring to private security contractors like Blackwater as "mercenaries."

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refers to the lack of legal accountability that allows mercenaries working for the American government to kill Iraqis without fear of prosecution as 'a lacuna' in our law."

The editorial writer seemed determined to rub readers' faces with the word, using it three times in a short editorial, even though "private contractors" would have been more accurate and less inflammatory.

Reporter Dexter Filkins has an exceedingly strange take on the death by air strike of terrorist leader Zarqawi, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Iraqis: “By finally eliminating Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the American military and its Iraqi allies have killed the man who put a face on the Iraqi insurgency. The question now looming over Mr. Zarqawi's death is how large a blow it deals to the guerrilla movement he helped drive to such bloody limits.