SOURCES: NEW YORK TIMES NOT TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT TOM COTTON OP-ED.

As the Times tells its reporters, a story needs at least two corroborations to make sure it ‘stands up’. Here’s the second: Tom Cotton’s staff have told Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, that this op-ed, like Cotton’s previous op-eds for the Times, received a ‘rigorous’ and ‘onerous’ fact-checking. Three drafts went back and forth.

So who’s telling the truth? The management, for whom this is only the latest in a series of unprofessional foul-ups — or The Spectator’s source and Tom Cotton’s staff?

The member of Cotton’s staff who worked with Rubenstein on the edits told The Spectator this morning that while he emailed only with Rubenstein, there were sticking points in the process when it was necessary for Rubenstein to consult with unnamed Times colleagues. These points were all resolved. The inference, Cotton’s staffer tells The Spectator, is that Rubenstein was not, as the Times now claims, working alone or unsupervised:

‘What they have attempted to do to a young editor who is doing his job, and also doing it well, is a disgrace.’

All is happening in accordance with the prophecy: