In the flap over the NYT's rejecting of a McCain op-ed on Iraq, Danny Finkelstein, editor of the opinion page at the Times of London, comes to the defense of the Gray Lady:

So there is no absolute requirement for the NYT to run a McCain piece. Naturally, however, the Editor should want his readers to know what McCain thinks on such a big question. And this might be a good moment to have a piece by him. So why not run it?

Well, political pieces by elected officials or candidates can often be very boring - safe, unrevealing and tediously partisan. In general I required such pieces to jump over a pretty high importance barrier before I ran them.

Obama's piece vaulted that hurdle. It outlined his views, pretty much avoided point scoring, and dealt with the issue.

McCain's piece, on the other hand, knocked the hurdle over. It wasn't about Iraq. It was about Obama. If I received it I would have done exactly what the NYT did - send it back and ask them to redraft it so that it was about Iraq and was more, well, interesting.

Why was I only able to say I "think" they "may" be right? Because I don't know exactly what they asked the Senator's staff to do to the piece. But if they simply asked for a piece that matched Obama's because, like Obama's it was actually about his views on Iraq, well then I am right behind them.

Fair enough. But given the political orientation of the New York Times' oped page, the paper had to know how such a rejection would be perceived be the public, just as the New York Post running a McCain op-ed and rejecting one by Obama would provoke similar cries of bias and favoritism.