NYT: a bit behind the times on Obama and ethanol

Fun fact about this blog: by far the single largest driver of visitors to it is a single trackback link on a post about Obama, McCain, and ethanol on Gary Mankiw's blog. Anyway, because of that link (which I can't see in Safari, but can in Firefox) and the NYT's story about Obama and ethanol that appeared on A1 below the fold today, I've been getting a lot of hits.

Anyway, the article was a pretty standard critique about Obama's pro-ethanol fuel policies and his ties to lobbyists, including the obligatory reference to agribusiness rent-seekers extraordinaire, Archer Daniels Midland ("ADM: supermarket to the world," to NPR listeners). However, something that struck me as a little bizarre and unbecoming of the Times' stature was that throughout the whole article, the author never once mentioned the fact that Obama recently stepped off a bit from his ethanol platitudes and admitted that it might not be such a great idea, after all. Since then, I don't remember having heard him talk about it, but then again I also have been trying my damnedest not to hear the presidential candidates at all. But it seems like something that might have warranted at least a mention, eh?