Ok, so we all know that the New York Times was 'Cooking the Invoice' for MoveOn.org's 'Cooking the Books' ad.
When you think about it, though, MoveOn was getting gypped at any price.
As one GOP staffer surmised:
"I'm surprised they had to pay anything at all for the ad. They could have just asked the editorial page to run it and it wouldn't have cost them a cent."
Indeed.
One can only imagine the pandemonium that broke out when MoveOn's ad first hit the NYT's office—ecstatic staffers erupting into a mad cacophony of hoots, hollers, and high fives. It's a wonder the Times didn't waive the fees in a glow of generous feeling for their leftist MoveOn soulmates. It's not like the Times wasn't dying to print it anyway. Leftist advocacy is the Time’s raison d'être; in this sense the NYT and MoveOn.org are working partners.
If any money changed hands, it should have been the Times paying MoveOn a tidy sum as heartfelt 'thank you' for the privilege of running such a tour de force of leftist boilerplate.
Ed Morrisey called the MoveOn/Times article:
[...] a nasty hit piece on the honor of a serving commander in a theater of war. [...] surely one of the worst moments in modern American media.
The 'worst moments in modern American media' is just business as usual at the New York Times.