This was an opinion article though right? The NY Times seems to have always had a fairly diverse range of opinion writers. I know I have even read criticism recently saying that the times shouldn’t be giving such writers a platform, particularly when the writers are on the opposite end of the political spectrum usually associated with the paper, but I personally find it commendable. Mainly if you have an opinion section, but all of the writers have roughly the same opinion, that only contributes to the “echo chamber” effect. With that given example of the Iraq war being noble, even though many (but certainly not all) would strongly disagree in hindsight, it was definitely not a fringe opinion at the time. Would it really be better to have an opinion section that didn’t include popular sentiments at the time of publication, even if many readers disagree with them?

Obviously there’s a lot of grey area here, and I don’t think The NY Times always strikes the right balance, but the example of publishing a pro Iraq War opinion in 2003 doesn’t seem particularly unhinged.