Jed Babbin points out that the New York Times deliberately lied (shocka!) in a recent editorial about a system for facilitating absentee ballots: Spinning Away.

In its August 31 editorial, “The Pentagon’s Troubling Role,” the Times accuses the Pentagon of preparing to operate a system “…in which employees who answer to the secretary of defense could control the margin of victory in a close presidential election.” They would do so, said the Times, by funneling e-mailed ballots through the Pentagon.

The system that is giving the Aunt Pittypats of the Times such a case of the vapors was begun in 1990 to enable states to use available technology to facilitate absentee votes from all American citizens — not just the military — who are overseas. Now the Defense Department is engaged in a determined effort to ensure that our soldiers and their families away from home aren’t disenfranchised as they were in 2000. Problem is, the Times — again — is simply making up facts to feed its own paranoia. Well, maybe it’s not paranoia: If the soldiers get to vote, they could easily deliver a Bush win in November.

This exercise in editorial mythology spun off from a press release from Missouri’s secretary of state, Matt Blunt, announcing that “…he will allow military voters from his state — one of the most pivotal in the election — to e-mail ballots from combat zones to the Defense Department.” The Times says that the Missouri rule — and a similar one issued in North Dakota — opens the door to coercion of soldiers by their commanders and makes it easy for Pentagon ballot-handlers to alter the votes, and it demands that the Pentagon stop handling ballots and instead help military and overseas voters send the ballots directly to local election officials. It would be a stretch to say that every word in the editorial is a falsehood. But it wouldn’t be much of a stretch. Though Matt Blunt’s office did make the incorrect announcement, the Times — knowingly, willfully, and with considerable precision — misstated the facts.

One very senior Pentagon official I spoke to Tuesday was dumbfounded. He said, “The New York Times has outdone itself by having more errors per column inch in this editorial than in any other article I’ve ever seen. Those pesky facts once again elude the New York Times.” Elude? Hardly. Facts occasionally elude those who are interested in them. The Times isn’t. Before the editorial appeared, Pentagon spokesmen told the Times’s editorial writer that no ballots were going to be handled by or transmitted through the Pentagon. But the Times ignored the facts and went about its business of purposely misleading the public.