Illinois bloggers are throwing a few jabs at the New York Times today as the Gray Lady proves it’s a company run by humans.

Rich Miller gives us the short version of a NYT Obama bio piece, saying the Times thinks we Prairie Staters are country bumpkins…  calling then State Sen. Obama’s fellow legislators “housewives, ex-mayors and [the] occasional soybean farmer”. (This New York Times “reporter” missed the sherriffs, teachers and CPAs — where’s Tribuner-turned-Timeser Jeff Zeleny when you need him?) It’s not as if the New York state legislature doesn’t also have its share of housewives, ex-mayor and farmers — let alone the Congress itself.

If I recall, this is what journalists call ‘adding color’ to a story and the attempt, I think, is to contrast Barack Obama’s exceptional education, background and heritage with the ‘country bumpkins’. But, it’s a pretty weak attempt since, as Jeff Zeleny did indicate in one of his own recent prez race blogposts for the Times, Sen. Obama is the only Dem candidate from flyover country “the Heartland”.

Billy Dennis also jumps on the NYT for being, well, stupid. Keep in mind while reading this that February is the shortest month of the year. Now, while even Pres. Bush has on occasion thought it had 30 days, most of us remember it’s only got 28 days, except in years when the summer Olympics are played and presidents are elected (and even then only 29 days at that).

But not so among the NYT editors, one of whom “corrected” an article which had read simply “February” to read “Feb. 30″… This was apparently done because the journalistic convention to end draft articles with the symbol “-30-” was misinterpreted at the end of an article whose last word was “February”. Thus, “February [ending symbol, -30-]” was changed by the wise editor to read “Feb. 30″.

This is the sort of editor which would quite possibly allow Judith Miller (she of questionable anonymous “sources”) to continue to promote White House talking points and wild speculation as fact.

The New York Times apologized for the “February 30″ error, but not the Judith Miller error.