Let me add this to Byron’s fine story today: The New York Times has never investigated – and never had its ombudsman, Daniel Okrent, investigate – this extraordinarily newsworthy question: Was the Grey Lady manipulated by a UN official, Mohammed ElBaradei, as part of a plot to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election?

This possibility was raised not only by me on NRO. This possibility also was raised by the Times’ own distinguished columnist, William Safire. Bill wrote in his Nov. 1, 2004 column: “Bin Laden was the second outsider to try to influence our election in an ‘October surprise.’ I suspect the first was Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief U.N. arms inspector …”

How might El Baradei have attempted to accomplish such a thing? You’ll recall that the charge that the Bush White House dropped the ball at Al Qaqaa was based on a letter written by an Iraqi official. That official was encouraged to write the letter by Mr. ElBaradei. But that official served in the interim government – not, apparently under Saddam Hussein. So how would he know? The Times never attempted to explain.

Nor did the Times interview that official. Instead, they interviewed his boss who, the Times asserted, “confirmed” that the explosives were stolen from under the nose of the U.S. military. But there is not a single corroborating quote. Indeed, the Iraqi says the opposite — that the U.S. was in charge at that point, so only they could know what happened.

And the Times neglected to report, much less address, the Iraqi memo disclosed by ABC News’ Martha Radditz revealing that at least one of the two explosives in question had been removed much earlier, long before the U.S. invasion.

The Times also never attempted to explain how the looters could have removed 380 tons of explosives without U.S. forces knowing it – since to transport that much material would have required about 38 large trucks (10 tons per truck) loading up at Al Qaqaa and moving the explosives by road – taking them somewhere. We had satellites and drones watching over the Iraqi landscape by then.

There are many, many more questions about this story. I won’t rehearse them now.

But, for just a moment, let’s suppose that there are answers to all these questions. Let’s suppose that high explosives were stolen out from under the noses of American military commanders. Should that really have been an indictment of the President? Should Bush really have been taping maps of all the ammo dumps in Iraq on the walls of the Oval Office and using a satellite phone to make sure his generals and colonels were not goofing off?

If Daniel Okrent is a serious ombudsman, he has work cut out for him.