From Monday's "Best of the Web Today" comes this interesting bit:

Take Me to the River
A reader wrote to the New York Times to inquire as to why the paper refers to Iraq as "Mesopotamia" when describing the al Qaeda affiliate in that country. He received the following reply from the Public Editor's Office:

Thank you for writing. I raised your question with an editor on the Foreign Desk who said that the issue is one of translation. The purest translation of the name the group gives itself is "Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers," the rivers being the Tigris and the Euphrates. While there are different translations and The Times acknowledges that the U.S. military and State Department uses "Al Qaeda in Iraq," the paper goes with the translation it does because the group drew on the more poetic usage for its name.

I hope this helps.

Does this mean the Times now calls it "al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers"? Apparently not. Which we suppose is just as well. After all, "the Land of the Two Rivers" could easily mean New York.

So, they call it "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" because the correct translation is "al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers?" Why don't they call it "al Qaeda Raging Waters?" Or "al Qaeda swiming with the fishes?"

Why in the heck are you referring to a long-gone nation/geographical area that doesn't really exist as such any more?

Could it be a political consideration to deny the obvious fact that there is an al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq?

So much for keeping personal politics out of the news pages.