"Why would the Times disappear a paragraph like that? Perhaps because it is precisely the type of inane, THE POLITICO-style reflexively horse race coverage of a serious issue that Abramson was inveighing against the day before. Of the capture of an international fugitive who has been wanted since the Clinton administration, the paper wrote—with no supporting evidence or quotes from elected officials—that it "could fuel accusations among his critics that the administration was eager for a showy foreign policy victory." It could fuel accusations among his critics, you see. Here, the paper of record is imparting a purely hypothetical possible attitude to purely hypothetical political opponents with absolutely no supporting evidence, or, really, way to prove or disprove the statement at all. It exists only in the realm of speculation inside the mind of a reporter on deadline. Obama capturing a wanted fugitive could fuel accusations that he's just showing off; Obama wearing a red tie could fuel accusations that the tie represents Communist Russia, because Obama is a socialist. Anything could fuel an accusation. It is a completely meaningless statement."
Typos courtesy of my iPhone
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