One Persons Mutilator Is Another's Proud Mother

The practice of genital mutilation still exists in parts of the world where a certain religion is practiced:

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 7 - Isnino Shuriye still remembers the pride she felt years ago when she leaned over each of her three daughters, knife in hand, and sliced into their genitals.

Each time, as the blood started to flow, she quickly dropped the knife and picked up a needle and thread. Quickly, expertly, she sewed her daughters' vaginas almost shut.

"I was full of pride," she recalled recently. "I felt like I was doing the right thing in the eyes of God. I was preparing them for marriage by sealing their vaginas."

She rues conducting the abhorrent deed now, I guess that she has seen the light. James Taranto, who has a new book out, spots the Times Orwellian use of words:

Scroll down a bit and you find this sentence: "She started as an apprentice while still an adolescent by holding down girls' legs for her mother to perform the rite, which opponents call genital mutilation." The reason opponents call it genital mutilation, of course, is because that's precisely what it is. Why does the New York Times, which supporters call a newspaper, feel obliged to distance itself from a clear, factual description?