New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt revealed in his Sunday column that MoveOn.org's infamous "General Betray Us" ad was not only sold at a discount, but should never have run in the first place according to the paper's standards for advocacy advertising.

Did MoveOn.org get favored treatment from The Times? And was the ad outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse?

The answer to the first question is that MoveOn.org paid what is known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083. The Times had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising sales representative made a mistake.

The answer to the second question is that the ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, “We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.” Steph Jespersen, the executive who approved the ad, said that, while it was “rough,” he regarded it as a comment on a public official’s management of his office and therefore acceptable speech for The Times to print.

MoveOn.org is now trying to help cover for the Times by promising to pay the "correct" rate -- and is calling on GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani to do the same.

Hoyt's column doesn't really answer the key question at hand: Exactly how did the mistake in the ad rate get made. Step-by-step. How long has this advertising person been with the company? Maybe one can be forgiven if it's a relatively new employee, but if it's someone who's been around quite awhile, then the chances of it being favoritism go up. The column also doesn't delve into this tidbit:

Eli Pariser, the executive director of MoveOn.org, told me that his group called The Times on the Friday before Petraeus’s appearance on Capitol Hill and asked for a rush ad in Monday’s paper. He said The Times called back and “told us there was room Monday, and it would cost $65,000.” Pariser said there was no discussion about a standby rate. “We paid this rate before, so we recognized it,” he said. [emphasis added]

I want to know the circumstances of these other occasions. Has MoveOn.org been getting a special rate for years? Or did the previous circumstances (i.e. not knowing for sure which day it will run) dictate that lower rate.

Hoyt has made a good first step, but there's some more digging called for.