On Friday this New York Times Editorial bemoans how the Democrat political machine deprives voters of primary choices. Consider this paragraph:

Democrats, for example, wanted to put five candidates for attorney general on their Sept. 14 primary ballot. You would think that that would be a simple matter of voting, but no. The law requires each candidate to get 25 percent of a party convention’s weighted vote. That, of course, makes five candidates impossible. So Democrats resorted to two separate votes counted in a closed room with leaders “helping” Democratic delegates figure out whom to support. The vote-rigging scene would have brought a smile to the Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall.

Yet, the day before, the Times in an editorial on the Sestak/Romanoff White House job offers, while overall actually fairly critical of the Obama administration, says this:

There is a difference between trying to clear the field for a preferred Congressional candidate and doing so in the context of a job offer. One is a legitimate ploy used by presidents of both parties. The other prompts legitimate questions of legality. There is a law against offering government jobs to influence elections. The White House said the job in Mr. Sestak’s case was nonpaying. In this case, it says there was no quid pro quo.

So for the Times, party bosses manipulating primaries bad, White House manipulating primaries is "a legtimate ploy." And here's a question; what is the "legitimate" way of clearing the primary field for a preferred Congressional candidate? This is the mantra I've been hearing from the left since day 1 of this scandal; everybody does it, but not, you really shouldn't do it the way the White House did. Then what is the legitimate way to "perusade" a candidate to leave a race?