February 2, 2007 -- 9:47 AM EST // // Post a Comment

WHAT IS UP AT THE TIMES, ANYWAY? Here's the lede on a piece by Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny about Hillary Clinton's fundraising that ran in today's paper:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is establishing record-setting goals for presidential campaign fund-raising, her advisers say, asking donors to raise at least $1 million for the honor of being in her top echelon of supporters.

For the "honor" of being in her top echelon? Is that really how her advisers put it? No question, this is a tiny thing -- but all the little inanities are worth pointing out, because it does seem like more and more of these silly, snide throwaway lines are snaking their way into the paper's political writing of late. Put enough of them together, and before long you have a torrent of silliness. Is this sort of idiocy really going to be allowed to dumb down the Paper of Record's coverage of what may prove to be the most important Presidential election in decades?