"But this manipulative attempt to establish a moral equivalence between the gruesome execution of Mr. Berg and the torture of Iraqi prisoners is now being mimicked by some hard-core supporters of the American war in Iraq. "
Ho-hum. NY Times says it is manipulative to establish moral equivalence between the beheading and the prisoner abuse. So which one is it that they want us to forget? Why, the beheading, of course. Because it's far less important than the prisoner abuse. Let's not have any of this moral equivalence, after all.
And notice that supporters of the war are "hard core". There are no soft core supporters of the war. That's because all the soft core people are against the war.
And how is that "hard core supporters of the war" are "mimicking" the claims of moral equivalence? Is it perhaps by claiming that these deeds are not morally equivalent? That's mimicking?
What tangled webs we weave when we start writing editorials for the NYT.
Very good job of parsing the NYT's weasel words.