I think that the Old Grey Lady may be a touch worried about the way that former governor Tim Pawlenty is handling his awkward past support of job-killing cap-and-trade schemes:

…Mr. Pawlenty looked right at the camera after the radio ad played, apologized to the American people, and said he had made a “mistake.”

“I’ve said I was wrong. It was a mistake, and I’m sorry,” Mr. Pawlenty told the Fox television audience, presumably filled with potential Republican primary voters. “You’re going to have a few clunkers in your record, and we all do, and that’s one of mine. I just admit it. I don’t try to duck it, bob it, weave it, try to explain it away. I’m just telling you, I made a mistake.”

…particularly since Pawlenty also didn’t take the opportunity to deflect the issue by slamming other Republicans, past and present*.  That’s not exactly what you’d call welcome news for some; which no doubt has nothing to do with the fact that the NYT attempted to compare this behavior with… wait for it, wait for it… John Edwards:

The last politician to try the apology approach was John Edwards, the former Democratic senator from North Carolina, who proudly and repeatedly proclaimed in 2007 that he had made a mistake in voting to authorize the war in Iraq.

[snip]

Mr. Edwards didn’t win his party’s nomination (though, in part for reasons wholly unrelated to his Iraq war vote.)

…Yeah, that’s one way of putting it: I think that ‘overly strained, if not actually tortured, analogy’ would be another.  Unless Tim Pawlenty is currently having an affair and an out-of-wedlock baby behind his dying wife’s back, of course.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Too busy going after the administration.