And They Were Doing So Well

Go take a look at this ad "factcheck" article in the NYT. Go ahead. I'll wait. Okay, back? Good. Decent enough piece, all in all: reviews the claims made in recent Obama ads, and evaluates them against the, you know, evidence. But then they write this:

In all, Mr. Obama has released at least five commercials that have been criticized as misleading or untruthful against Mr. McCain’s positions in the past two weeks. Mr. Obama drew complaints from many of the independent fact-checking groups and editorial writers who just two weeks ago were criticizing Mr. McCain for producing a large share of this year’s untruthful spots (“Pants on Fire,” the fact-checking Web site PolitiFact.com wrote of Mr. Obama’s advertisement invoking Mr. Limbaugh; “False!” FactCheck.org said of his commercial on Social Security.)

Why write "at least five commercials that have been criticized as misleading or untruthful"?

What's wrong with saying "Mr. Obama has released at least five commercials that are misleading or untruthful," if that's the conclusion they have reached?

Because it's the NYT and they don't think that it's their job to pass judgment. Except when it apparently is. Like, say, in an article evaluating the truthfulness of political ads.

Sigh.