The New York Times over the weekend admitted they made a mistake with the whole moveon.org fiasco. As we all know, moveon.org took out an ad personally attacking General Petraeus before his report on Iraq was even read. The ‘Times let moveon.org have the ad for a deeply discounted price, which of course, screams favoritism. This weekend, the ‘Times admitted it’s mistake of giving moveon.org the discount after it’s Public Editor, Clark Hoyt sharply criticized The Times for it’s actions.

The organization paid $64,575, instead of the standard $142,083, for the ad questioning the war in Iraq, public editor Clark Hoyt wrote in a column published Sunday.

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis told Hoyt that an advertising sales representative shouldn’t have agreed to the discounted price. The ad seemed to disregard internal advertising standards that ban ads involving attacks of a personal nature, Hoyt wrote.

“We made a mistake,” she told Hoyt.

Of course, moveon.org denied any complicity in this matter and said that they have paid this price in the past. They also are going to send the difference in price to the ‘Times for the ad.

MoveOn.org said in a statement it would wire the difference in the ad rates to the Times on Monday.

“While we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by most organizations, out of an abundance of caution we have decided to pay that rate for this ad,” said Eli Pariser, MoveOn’s political action executive director.

Pariser added that MoveOn negotiated a price it thought was the Times’ normal rate. “There is no evidence of any kind that the error in quoting of rates was in any way based on the content of the advertisement or the identity of its sponsor,” Pariser said.

Here’s a great interview on this matter: