Letter to the New York Times

I just sent this letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Why are you letting the Bush Administration spin their disgraceful and criminal response to Hurricane Katrina by letting them lie anonymously?

Just today, in an article about Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- a man Americans watch repeatedly lie about conditions in New Orleans while we watched death caused by FEMA's negligence in the pictures on our television screens -- you print this:

For instance, one administration official who was at the briefing said it was Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon, not Mr. Chertoff, who told House members that television images of sparse relief efforts for evacuees sheltered at the Superdome offered "a small soda-straw view of what was going on."

This is an not exactly an important detail, yet you allow the Administration to spin a Cabinet member's callous comment. I believe this violates your own policy on anonymous sources, which states: "Anonymity should not be invoked for a trivial comment." Why was this "source" offered the shield of anonymity? If you couldn't use the source's name, you shouldn't print the spin.

Sincerely, [truth]