“Misstatement” in the New York Times – What I regard as another misleading statement in Sunday’s NYT caught my eye this morning. In a profile of a dozen close “races to watch” in the next Congressional election, the NYT had this to say about liberal Republican Constance Morella’s race in Maryland’s 8th District:
As a Republican, Ms. Morella has represented one of the most Democratic districts in the nation for eight terms. The district, in the Washington suburbs, has become increasingly Democratic in the past two years, raising Democrats’ hopes.
To say the district “has become increasingly Democratic in the past two years” implies some impersonal demographic trend — a trend, moreover, that the Democrats were happy to discover and from which they hoped to benefit. Lucky Democrats! In fact, the district became “increasingly Democratic” overnight due to the very human actions of those very same Democrats, who gerrymandered her district so that Ms. Morella would have to run in district whose Democratic numbers they quite purposefully increased.
When I got home tonight I was all set to call this peculiar description of the Maryland 8th to your attention, but when I went online to get the URL this is what I found:
MARYLAND 8 — Eight-term Republican Rep. Connie Morella is party’s [sic] most vulnerable incumbent after redistricting left her liberal suburban Washington district even more Democratic.
Does this revision mean a conscientious editor finally got around to reading the copy? For the original, printed version, find a paper copy and look at “As Campaign Season Heats Up, Some Races to Watch,” 9/1/2002, p. 24.
