ANDREW MCCARTHY IS TAKING THE NEW YORK TIMES TO TASK for hypocrisy and dishonesty on Iraq/Al Qaeda connections: “Most pathetic of all in today’s article is the Times‘s self-serving rationale for withholding critical information while it was accusing the president of misleading the country. . . . No one is more aware than the ‘newspaper of record’ that if the American people become convinced Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were in cahoots, the national perception of the necessity for this war will drastically change, and the president’s reelection will be a virtual lock. That’s what this is about. And who knows what else the Times is not telling us?”

UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Miller seems to think this is unfair, because of the Times’ separation between News and Editorial.

If the Bush Administration said something stupid because of managerial separations, would the Times cut it similar slack?