Same Old New York Times II

In a front page, lead article in the NYT today, Elizabeth Bumiller writes under a headline that proclaims “Evangelicals Sway White House on Human Rights Issues Abroad.”

The print, but not the online, edition has a subhead pointing out that “Liberals Join Effort on AIDS and Sex Trafficking.” But since it must have been necessary to “sway” the White House to be concerned about such things as AIDS in Africa, sex trafficking, and persecution of Christians, it must have been not only the evangelicals but the “white evangelicals” doing the swaying. David Saperstein, a reform rabbi and “longtime lobbyist for liberal causes” who visited Karl Rove in the White House along with Charles Colson to push these issues, might be surprised to learn that he was signing on to causes attributed primarily to evangelicals.

I was most struck, however, by this observation from Ms. Bumiller:

No one disputes that Mr. Bush already cares deeply about those issues and has a personal faith that his advisers say brings a moral dimension to a foreign policy better known for war.

So, no one but Bush’s advisers say his foreign policy has a moral dimension? Everyone knows that “moral dimension” and “war” are mutually exclusive, so that there was no moral dimension to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Who are these unnamed knowers to whom this obvious (to Ms. Bumiller and her editors) truth is “known”?

Say What?