Editing Error

The editors of The New Republic got it right, it IS the correction of the year, issued by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on November 18: “Because of an editing error, a story on the front page yesterday misattributed a quote from the speaker on an audiotape purportedly of Saddam Hussein as coming from Senate Minority Leader Tom Daeschle of South Dakota. It was the speaker on the tape, not Daeschle, who said, ‘The evil ones now find themselves in crisis, and this is the will of God. The only solution for Iraq was for ‘the zealous Iraqi sons, who ran its affairs and brought it out of backwardness . . . to return . . . to run its affairs anew.’”

An obvious error, but, given the current frenzy from the Democrats (not least TNR ‘s own writers), an understandable one.