The (ab)use of anonymous quotes by the New York Times is closely followed not only by the Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, but also by former New York Sun managing editor Ira Stoll at his SmarterTimes blog.
Neither of them, however, has glommed onto this beauty in Scott Shane’s Times piece yesterday about Hillary Clinton’s total absence of classified emails during her four-year stint as secretary of state.
“I would assume that more than 50 percent of what the secretary of state dealt with was classified,” said [a former senior State Department] official, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to seem ungracious to Mrs. Clinton.
Really? Ungraciousness is now grounds for confidentiality?
O Timespora! O mores!
Campaign Outsider 
If you start attributing unsupported assertions of [former] officials, you’ll have a heck of a time filling your holiday party guest list.