It's the lead story on the Sunday front page of the New York Times -- a lengthy piece on how frantic, behind-the-scenes efforts by U.S. and European diplomats supposedly came close to building a path toward ending the bloody conflict in Egypt between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the military-backed interim government. In the end, as we all know, external prodding failed. But in allotting blame for why diplomacy didn't succeed, the Times gratuitously points an accusing finger at Israel and AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, for allegedly siding with the Egyptian military and undermining U.S. diplomacy ("How a U.S. Push to Defuse Egypt Ended in Failure -- Barrage of Diplomacy -- Despite 17 Calls from Hagel, Cairo Chose Confrontation" by David Kirkpatrick, Peter Baker and Michael Gordon). The article not only gets the most prominent spot up front, but continues inside the paper with a spread, including photos, that takes up an entire inside page. Yet length...(Read Full Post)