Ramesh and Mona have written about the false moral equivalence that many journalists have made between Trump and Cruz in the wife controversy. This, from the New York Times yesterday, has to be one of the most absurd examples of the genre:

Mr. Cruz was swift to defend Heidi Cruz’s honor, tweeting, “Donald, real men don’t attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life.” It sounded chivalrous, until Mr. Cruz kept talking. He called Mr. Trump a “sniveling coward” and a “New York bully,” and praised Heidi as “an unbelievable mom.” Mr. Cruz denied that his wife was the object that Trump supporters were calling her — an unattractive woman — by saying that, in fact, she was a different kind of object: the love of his life, important and valuable primarily in terms of her relationship to him, and “off bounds,” and in need of protection, just like their children.