The New York Times reports: “Federal officials said yesterday that the city…mishandled the application itself, failing to file it electronically as required and instead faxing its request to Washington, where it had to be entered manually into a computer system. City and state officials denied making that mistake.” Gee, I thought New York City got its federal anti-terror money slashed by 40 percent because of a “two-by-two matrix” and a threat-risk system, which is what Secretary Chertoff said — and because it has no “monuments or national icons.” Now it’s in part because the application was faxed (which, if I have my guess right, is a load of BS). Really, this is the most embarrassing excuse to come out of Washington in I don’t know how long.