Moral dilemmas. They keep cropping up, don’t they?

A New York Times architectural critic, Icolai Ouroussoff, admits to have navigated hazardous shoals by writing about the new building housing his paper’s offices.

According to Ouroussoff, “If I love it, the reader will suspect that I’m currying favor with the man who signs my checks. If I hate it, I’m just flaunting my independence.”

No, you’re fine, Ouroussoff. Good article. But here’s a different complaint. It’s that the Times isn’t printing all the news fit to print about this building. Like the rights the Times trampled on to put the building up.

There’s not enough reporting about the political architecture, if you will.

See, when the folks at the Times first eyed the location, the block was not a desert. Many property owners there, like Stratford Wallace, didn’t want to sell. Didn’t agree that their neighborhood was “blighted,” either.

But the Times and a real estate developer convinced the state to use eminent domain to kick these owners out. And when 60 Minutes did a story about such eminent domain abuse, the Times refused to talk. Times editors carry the policy onto their own pages.

The paper had a real “moral dilemma” here, if you want to call it that. To wit: “Just because we can trample these guys to get this location, does that mean it’s okay to do so? Does might make right?”

Rhetorical question, but let’s answer anyway. “No.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.