Plus: Has NYTimes.com gone tabloid?

The editors of the New York Times, perhaps sensing that I could use an easy item to complete my weekend column, published a story this morning (April 21) overrun with anonymice—those pesky, gratuitous, and sometimes misleading unnamed sources I've railed about again and again in this column. (See "Related in Slate" below.)

Today's Times mice don't appear in a vital piece about secret surveillance, an urgent story about secret foreign prisons, or in a fabulous scoop about a military coup in the making but in an article about White House staff changes that might happen.

Titled "Bush Counsel May Be Next In Shake-Up," the article speculates on the imminent transfer or disposal of White House counsel Harriet Miers. (Remember her?) The paper first grants anonymity to an "influential Republican with close ties to [White House Chief of staff Joshua B.] Bolten … [who] was granted anonymity to talk openly about sensitive internal White House deliberations. …"

What does the Closely Tied Influential Republican say? Not much:

"It's a reflection of Josh's thinking," the Republican said. "It's not a prediction that he's going to get it done."

Providing a counterpoint to the Influential Republican is a "senior White House official … who was granted anonymity to get around the administration's policy of not commenting on personnel matters." What does that Senior White House Official say from under the camouflage? Very little:

"It's not the case."

A few paragraphs down, a pack of Republican anonymice skitter through the story as Times reporters Elisabeth Bumiller and Jim Ruttenberg write:

Mr. Bolten is said by a number of Republicans in Washington to feel that Ms. Miers is indecisive, a weak manager and slow in moving vital paperwork through the system.

A number of Republicans? Three? Ten? Twenty? Five thousand?