That New York Times article that H.D. Miller linked to (see my post below) is also the same one that has this quote from Senator Kerry:

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

Almost immediately, that quote produced this ad by the GOP. In a post titled "The New York Times Accidentally Reveals Kerry", Jim Geraghty writes:

I am sure the New York Times did not set out to torpedo the Kerry candidacy when it published Sunday's New York Times Magazine article on his views on the war on terror.

And yet, reading it, part of me wonders if this article - and the ads that have resulted from it - will mark a turning point in the final month of the race.

The New York Times has played a huge, huge role in keeping Kerry's swift boat of a campaign afloat. As Jonathan M. Stein wrote in a piece we linked to back in August:

As of March, the Times had a total circulation volume of 1,133,763 copies daily. However, the circulation volume of the paper itself does not reflect the paper’s total impact on the marketplace of information. The New York Times Co. publishes the New York Times, the Boston Globe and 16 other newspapers; owns eight network-affiliated television stations and two New York radio stations; and has more than 40 Web sites, including NYTimes.com and Boston.com.

Columns appearing in the NYT are syndicated throughout this extensive media network. Further, network and cable news anchors tend to lead with stories substantively taken from the front page of the NYT.

Thus, the reach of the NYT and its incalculable power to influence the marketplace of information and ideas evince a media juggernaut beyond that of any other single information source in existence. More salient, though, is the fact that the Times, as an alleged media outlet, escapes regulation under McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform."

The network of financial connections between Kerry's campaign and the Times is extensive. Although the Times has an allegedly official “ban” on political campaign contributions, a simple search on “opensecrets.org” reveals that at least two editors in the employ of the Times, Christine Muhlke and Elizabeth Stewart, have contributed at least $1,500 to John Kerry’s campaign efforts.

These are individuals who have direct influence on the selection of stories that run in the Times and its companion magazine – and they are on the record giving money out of their own pockets directly to the Kerry campaign.

At least two other employees of the Times – Alan Flippen and William Usuik – have contributed $1,250 to Kerry.

Alternatively, not a single employee of the Times has contributed to President Bush or any other Republican candidate or organization. This fact, i.e. the fact that influential individuals working for the New York Times have contributed money directly to Kerry, and Kerry alone, is quite troubling and seriously calls into question the objectivity of that news outlet. Further, the financial connection between John Kerry, the Democrats, and the New York Times goes beyond mere employees.

The New York Times Co. is effectively owned and controlled by the Sulzberger family. At least one Sulzberger family member, Dr. Judith P. Sulzberger (who owns, de jure, approximately 5 percent of the New York Times voting shares, or over about 7 million shares), has donated the maximum ($2,000) directly to Kerry (on March 8).

Dr. Sulzberger has also contributed $5,000 to “Victory Campaign 2004” (which finds radical leftist 527 groups such as Americans Coming Together and The Media Fund) and $20,000 to the Democrat National Committee (DNC Services Corp.). So, in the aggregate, an individual exercising de jure ownership/control over the New York Times Co. has donated in excess of $27,000 to Kerry and other far-left efforts to defeat the president.

"Pinch" Sulzberger's ideology is of course, a perfect dovetail with Kerry, as this exchange illustrates:

Pinch was a political activist in the Sixties, and was twice arrested in anti-Vietnam protests. One day, the elder Sulzberger asked his son what Pinch calls, "the dumbest question I've ever heard in my life." If an American soldier runs into a North Vietnamese soldier, which would you like to see get shot? Young Arthur answered, "I would want to see the American get shot. It's the other guy's country." Some Sixties activists have since thought better of their early enthusiasms. Pinch hasn't.

Sound very much like a certain Winter Soldier we know?

It would be a perfect example of blowback, if a puff piece on Kerry published by the Times ends up destroying him, considering that this election is as much a referendum on the legacy media--whose bias (heck, even the Times admits it now!) has never been more transparent--as it is between the two men running for the White House.

Update: Not surprisingly, James Lileks uncorks one on Mr. Nuanced Nuisance:

A nuisance?

A nuisance? I don’t want the definition of success of terrorism to be “it isn’t on the rise.” I want the definition of success to be “free democratic states in the Middle East and the cessation of support of those governments and fascist states we haven’t gotten around to kicking in the ass yet.” I want the definition of success to mean a free Lebanon and free Iran and a Saudi Arabia that realizes there’s no point in funding the fundies. An Egypt that stops pouring out the Jew-hatred as a form of political novacaine to keep the citizens from turning their ire on their own government. I want the definition of success to mean that Europe takes a stand against the Islamicist radicals in their midst before the Wahabbi poison is the only acceptable strain on the continent. Mosquito bites are a nuisance. Cable outages are a nuisance. Someone shooting up a school in Montana or California or Maine on behalf of the brave martyrs of Fallujah isn't a nuisance. It's war.

But that's not the key phrase. This matters: We have to get back to the place we were.

But when we were there we were blind. When we were there we losing. When we were there we died. We have to get back to the place we were. We have to get back to 9/10? We have to get back to the place we were. So we can go through it all again? We have to get back to the place we were. And forget all we’ve learned and done? We have to get back to the place we were. No. I don’t want to go back there. Planes into towers. That changed the terms. I am remarkably disinterested in returning to a place where such things are unimaginable. Where our nighmares are their dreams.

We have to get back to the place we were.

No. We have to go the place where they are.

And Hugh Hewitt has some thoughts as well. Start here and just keep scrolling.