So it's Sunday morning and I'm reading Clark Hoyt's "Fairness and the Accused," <link>, which starts like this:

HERE is what anonymous sources told The Times about two men in recent high-profile criminal cases:

Raymond Clark III, accused of killing Annie Le, a Yale graduate student, was described as “very officious and very demanding” and gave some students a hard time in the medical research building where he and Le worked — making such “a big deal” out of wearing shoe covers, for example, that a co-worker told his supervisor.

It was no surprise that the case against Robert Joel Halderman, accused of blackmailing David Letterman, involved money and sex, a former colleague at CBS said. Halderman “lived on the edge” and had “a bit of a checkered love life.”

Was it proper for The Times to report such statements from people who would not stand behind them? The paper has a policy that says anonymous sources should not be used lightly, but as a last resort, and should not be allowed to engage in personal attack or speculation. These tidbits seemed at best like gossip and at worst unfair suggestions of motive or guilt.

If all of that was predictable, so is the ending. Trust me.

At 5:45 a.m., I send the following comment:

Everything hangs on "but as a last resort."

Next time the NYT feels called upon to endorse as a candidate for the presidency either someone who's okay with a war in favor of which he or she possesses no evidence, or else someone who'd have the existing and "Top Secret" evidence shared with the enlisted soldiers who would be dying as a result of the soundness of that evidence, I want to see the Times telling those soldiers that they are people to whom the Times and the nation should not--can not--resort, when it comes to the placing of our trust.

I signed my name.

Go here: <link>. Do you see that comment anywhere?