Hiding Behind Reporters

From an NYT story:

With results still trickling in slowly from Iraq’s parliamentary elections last week and no clear winners likely to emerge anytime soon, public frustration here seems to be growing. American officials have privately expressed concern that even a fair election might be made to appear unfair.

No, they have not.They have done no such thing. You cannot express something privately on the front page of the New York Times. Which American officials are these? Why won't they give their names? What happened to the NYT's policy of not using anonymous sources unless absolutely necessary?

Read that last sentence again:

American officials have privately expressed concern that even a fair election might be made to appear unfair.

This is written to imply that the elections were fair, would make a casual reader assume that they were, and that evidence to the contrary is just coincidental and unfortunate.

And maybe that's true. But we will never get to ask that question of this person, because the NYT has agreed to give them anonymity for no reason, and against their own policy.

My new policy will be to automatically assume that anyone who speaks off the record without a good reason (and that reason had better be explained in the story), is lying, period.

Therefore, when I read this story I assume that this election is rife with fraud, and that that is the probable cause of the delay.