So yesterday, I called attention to a fairly sleazy line from Bob Kerrey in which he tried to suggest that Brown doesn’t believe in evolution. The Times ran the insinuation without skepticism or explanation. And then it cut the reference to evolution. It had read:

“If he’s running against 60 votes and wins, that is not good,” said Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska. “It says that in Massachusetts, they are willing to elect a guy who doesn’t believe in evolution just to keep the Democrats from having 60 votes.”

Now it says:

“If he’s running against 60 votes and wins, that is not good,” said Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska.

It’d be nice to know why the change. Did the Times find out this wasn’t true? Did it pull the line for Kerrey’s sake?

Also, the edit changes the meaning of Kerrey’s comments. In the original version, Kerrey was insinuating that Brown’s some sort of neanderthal and losing the 60-seat Democratic majority to a neanderthal would be really bad. Now, he’s saying it would be bad simply to lose it.

Update: I guess the edit was just for space, because the evolution crack is still in the Cleveland Plain Dealer version of the story.