The New York Times letters to the editor commonly seems to be representative not only of the paper's editorial view, but also of its blue-state home base.
Therefore, it really says something when the Times publishes six letters on its criminal outing of a legal anti-terrorist surveillance program and four of them take the paper to task for its decision.
If it were a "normal" conservative/liberal issue, I would've predicted that out of six letters, five of them would take the liberal view and further that three of those would take the Times to task for not being liberal enough.
This could be a sign that the Times has finally gone too far and serious blowback may be building up.
On a related note: For a detailed analysis of the legal issues surrounding this program, check out Andrew C. McCarthy's piece over at NRO.
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Matthew,
Did it ever occur to you that the Times may have received just two letters supporting their position and hundreds if not thousands of letter denouncing them for their decision to out the swifh program? But either why I agree with your hypothesis.