Sarah Palin in Colorado yesterday:

I was reading my copy of today's New York Times and I was interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago....Turns out one of Barack's earliest supporters is a man who, according to the New York Times, and they are hardly ever wrong, was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that quote launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and US Capitol. Wow.

As Gov. Palin would say, Wow. You betcha she's off message. The paper that's hardly ever wrong was accused two weeks ago of being "an Obama advocacy organization" that perpetrated "a partisan attack falsely labeled as objective news." Oh, but that reckless accuser was, let's see, was it, yes, the McCain campaign.

Where to start? A smattering of recent items from the paper that's hardly ever wrong (courtesy of Public Editor Clark Hoyt's blog):

• "Loan Titans [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million": "Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say. (NYT, 9/21)

• "Mr. Obama has offered detailed proposals on the economy, for stemming the mortgage default crisis and channeling investment into activities that will generate new jobs. He would raise capital gains taxes as well as income and Social Security taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, but the notion that he would also increase taxes on middle-class voters has been repeatedly debunked. Studies have found that Mr. Obama would offer most Americans a tax cut three times the size of what Mr. McCain proposes." (NYT, 9/18)

• "Ad on Sex Education Distorts Obama Policy": "Escalating its efforts to portray Senator Barack Obama as a candidate whose values fall outside the mainstream, the campaign of Senator John McCain on Tuesday unveiled a new television advertisement claiming that Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, favors 'comprehensive sex education' for kindergarten students. The ad however, seriously distorts the record." (NYT, 9/11)

• And this classic: "Palin Disclosures Raise Questions on Vetting": "Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain's running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described." (NYT, 9/2)

Those tricky shape-shifting liberal media! Just when you think you've nailed them down, they resurface as "hardly ever wrong." Memo to Bill Keller: Print these words onto a huge banner over 41st St., high enough so no building-climbers can rip it down.

Postscript: A couple of correspondents have suggested that Palin must have been smirking when she spoke the words: "and they are hardly ever wrong." I haven't been able to find any video of her making the Colorado speech. Later, in southern California, she didn't repeat those words, but the very mention of the NYT brought a burst of boos from her crowd. But in Colorado, I have no visual evidence.

But this is all mighty weird even if she was smirking. For in that case, she was proposing to the crowd, which disbelieves in the NYT, that the NYT is to be believed about Obama and Ayers. Any intended sarcasm was incapacitatingly lame, since adducing the article while coupling it with sarcasm stepped on her own point.