The same reason it changed "change" into "chage".

http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/2008/05/springtime-in-somalia.html

Saturday, May 03, 2008
Springtime in Somalia

It looks like we’re still using U.S. Navy warships to assassinate suspected terrorists in Somalia. The New York Times said, “at least four Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from a Navy ship or submarine off the Somali coast had slammed into a small compound of single-story buildings in Dusa Marreb.”

The NYT’s source for that information was an “American military official in Washington, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation.” Notice how operations these days are “sensitive” as opposed to “classified” or “secret.” One has to wonder how they arrived at a world like “sensitive” to describe things like cruise missile attacks that kill people. Then again, so many of these missile strikes kill people other than the people they were intended to kill that yeah, I guess American military officials in Washington might get sensitive about that aspect. The NYT reported that 10 to 30 people other than the intended target were killed this time, and we can be pretty sure that part of the story is mostly true because the NYT didn’t get it from an anonymous American military official.

The Associated Press actually got two of its sources to agree to be identified [...]

- - Jeff Huber

"Who Needs Dana Perino When You Have the NYT's Michael Gordon"?

Kind of actually begs the question "who needs Dana Perino." Watching and reading the vapid-yet-arrogant countenance, alarmingly stupid "prepared opening explanations" she reads from her binder and the even-more-alarmingly (and uniformly) insipid utterances offered by this lowest common denominator in response to any questions from the floor, convincing nobody of anything except that she must have been recruited straight from late night MTV, it's hardly surprising that "journalists" may have given up on trying to actually locate a source worthy of quoting by name in support of an Administration line.

Another round of NYT pandering is, in fact, "newsworthy" and here's hoping GG's observations once again get picked up somewhere in the MSM in less than two weeks. But you have to have some sympathy for "professionals" like Gordon, right? After all, anything he has to say has just got to be presumed more intelligent and informed than whatever the current White House Press Secretary says, doesn't it?

Well, there's Michael Gordon, the one with a byline here, and then there's Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher on top. In between, it takes an insider to know the various editors and maneuverings that make all this possible. But maybe one of those insiders has enough of a conscience to be writing a tell-all, and maybe it'll even come out at a time when it's not tragically too-late.

I'm not holding my breath though. The newspaper of record? That's harkening back to a less sinister time. We keep going in circles, and the sounds keeps getting worse and worse. Want another opinion? Let's ask Bill Kristol.

I bookmarked that site (zenhuber). Have you read his book?

Even if Iran and Hezbollah ARE training people to go into Iraq and fight American soldiers and the Iraqi government, is the best solution to expand the war? It would cause even more American deaths, more trillions of dollars, much more anger toward us and further destabilize the region and make it more open to radical leaders. So, I think that whether it's true or not, more war is not the answer.

Once again,though, what has happened to journalism in America? Is it big business and the profit motive that killed it or is it just plain laziness? Or is it "too hard" to find out the truth? We don't need stenographer, we need reporters.

...where in hell are Gordon's editors? They have as much responsibility for this shameless propaganda exercise as he does.

Seems to me the editors at the Times should be asked why they publish this crap. Gordon's stuff wouldn't see the light of day without an editor saying ok.

I think it's wrong to stop so low on the Times food-chain. I'd like to know who's approving this crap, and why.

I am wondering, if we attack Iran, will the rest of the world have finally had enough and begin to undermine and attack us in whatever ways are available to them? For instance, will the Chinese call in their some of their markers?Does anyone know or have any good references on speculation as to what the rest of the world would do once it is beyond plain that we are a rogue state? I am seriously asking because, like most Americans, I do not have a good handle on where we actually stand other than being the known bully that everyone despises. My guess would be that, regardless of whether the idiotic American public thinks we are somehow justified in attacking Iran, that the rest of the world isn't going to buy the BushCo warmongering this time around, and may see it as in their best interests to attempt to do us in. Anyone else think that might happen?

Glenn, you could almost make this entire article into a macro, and just periodically serve it up with the dates changed. And I could do the same with this question: why are these sources anonymous in the first place? (Gordon refers to them as "American officials" or "officials" or just "Americans" 21 times in this article.) Nobody's blabbing any secrets here or blowing any whistles; they're just spewing the talking points. This isn't exactly something the administration is shy about doing publicly. So why aren't these anonymous officials willing to go on the record with the spew, if not the actual evidence? I can't believe the NY Times calls this journalism.

Does anyone know who likely was the editor for this article? Michael Gordon (and the Times collectively) should be held to account of course, but also his editor(s) specifically.

In my ideal world, news orgs would publish the editor's name as well as the journalist's byline. (Bloomberg News does this, I don't know of any others.)