NYTimes "Erred" with Moveon.orgs Ad?

If this is the description of an error, I'm guessing they err intentionally.

WASHINGTON - After two weeks of denials, the New York Times acknowledged that it should not have given a discount to Move-On.org for a full-page advertisement assailing Gen. David Petraeus.

The liberal advocacy group should have paid $142,000 for the ad calling the U.S. commander in Iraq "General Betray Us," not $65,000, the paper's public editor wrote Sunday.

Clark Hoyt said in his column that MoveOn was not entitled to the cheaper "standby" rate for advertising that can run any time over the following week because the Times did promise that the ad would run Sept. 10, the day Petraeus began his congressional testimony. "We made a mistake," Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis was quoted as saying.

MoveOn, saying it had no reason to believe it was paying "anything other than the normal and usual charge," said Sunday that it would send the Times $77,000 to make up the difference.

The Times also violated its own advertising policy, which bars "attacks of a personal nature," Hoyt said.

Many Republicans have preferred talking about MoveOn's ad rather than the war.

I like that last line. I'm still trying to figure out its relevance to the story since it sounded like it was aiming at the actions of the NYTimes and not a discussion of the political machinations of the Repugs. But, hey, why not make an editorial comment that is irrelevant. Seems that is the normal method of doing things in journalism these days.

So if they violated at least two of their own house rules I guess it is plausible that it was a mistake, but it has a certain fishy smell to me. Not that the NYTimes isn't known for its rather bent coverage and editorial stand on the present administration.

Friday, the Senate voted 75-25 to denounce the ad. Sen. Hillary Clinton, of New York, the Democratic presidential front-runner, was questioned about the ad while taping interviews with all five Sunday talk shows.

Clinton said she did not approve of personal attacks from any quarter but avoided criticizing MoveOn by name.

The group told its 3 million members by e-mail that some might think "the language went too far. . . . But make no mistake: this is much bigger than one ad."

Interesting that the Senate sprang into action on this one. More likely they just want to be on record as not supporting a statement that derides the armed forces and specifically a general who is showing some success at this time. Hillary definitely walked the fine line of not condemning anyone specifically and yet condemning them. She definitely is a class A politician. And that isn't a compliment.

As for Moveon.org, I expect that we'll be seeing more of this brand of rubbish.