Covering for the New York Times

Here at the expansive and luxurious editorial offices of The Scratching Post, we feel for our poorer cousins over at the New York Times. Recently, they've suffered enormous financial losses and are looking towards layoffs across the board. No doubt they've also had to cut back on lunches and snacks. It is the low blood sugar levels resulting from these austerity programs that we believe is to blame for their recent decision to reject John McCain's editorial response to Barack Obama's editorial of last week.

Some have claimed that this is just another example of the MSM swooning over Obama like drunk sorority girls in the presence of the football team, but we know better. We know that their journalistic professionalism would never let them prostrate themselves before Obama as if he were some kind of New Age Messiah.

To help them in this dark time while they find something to eat and restore their senses, we're linking to the DrudgeReport page that has Senator McCain's editorial printed in its entirety, an editorial we feel certain that the NewYork Times would have run had they had sufficient food to eat.

Or if Senator McCain had been a Democrat.

Whatever the cause of their omission, here's an excerpt.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Read the whole thing.