Boston and the nation have gone through a trauma and a degree of catharsis over the attack in Boston, and now the battle to define how we discuss that incident and the perps is underway. Media progressives openly hoped and predicted the perp would turn out to be a white male who followed Sarah Palin on Twitter, and are now trying to recover from the awful truth that Islam and jihad look like the motives.

Yesterday in these pages, J. Robert Smith accurately predicted how the progressives would frame the accused:

The Brothers Tsarnaev grew up in an environment of conflict and bloody violence, and are, therefore, victims. They are traumatized, not terrorists -- at least, not terrorists who are motivated by their Muslim faith, even if that seems apparent. Even if it's proven that they have links to Middle Eastern or other Muslim terrorist groups.

The New York Times spin AT predicted appeared hours later.

Now here's where the meme wares get interesting. A little later, the Times re-did its layout, and excised the more embarrassing terms, after a storm of social media feedback.  Conservatives are wising up fast, and realizing their power to hold the media accountable, as in shaming them into covering the Gosnell trial.  

Another thing conservatives are getting good at is documenting the progressive media's bias. The reason we have evidence of this proffer and withdrawal of the sympathy meme for Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev is that Jim Treacher of the Daily Caller took screen shots of the original layout. They are offered up with this piece by Christopher Bedford titled titled, "New York Times shows sympathy for Boston terrorist suspects." He writes:

The sympathetic portrayal of the men - who murdered three civilians, including a child, wounded 180 people, murdered one unsuspecting police officer and wounded another officer - was met with quick condemnation on social media networks.

Since The Daily Caller's Jim Treacher took a screen-grab of the article, the Times changed the layout of the page to one more seemingly aware of the hundreds of victims and their friends and families, the entire United States and much of the non-terrorist planet:

The new page does not contain the phrases "war-torn" or "trying to fit in." The image of a man looking at an image of one of the suspected terrorists is still on the page and links to a boring video about what Chechnya is.

Treacher pints the finger of responsibility right where it belongs:

In most news organizations, the layout of an article is chosen by editors, and not the reporter who wrote the story.

These decision makers at the Times are the pilot fish for the MSM when it comes to what's news and what isn't; their signals are read throughout the rest of the media.  

The Times would rather this saga go unnoticed. They launched a thoroughly predictable meme and had to withdraw it. I am sure they will sneak back those sympathetic themes after passions have cooled a bit. Don't worry, though, we're on to them and can call them out now.

It was so much simpler back when there was one daily newspaper in each city, three broadcast networks, and the New York Times telling them all what to think. Oh yeah, and back then, they all made big profits.

So who's winning the Meme Wars?