The NYT And The Race

Pathetic reporting:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is entering the Kentucky and Oregon primaries on Tuesday with one of the most pugnacious political messages of her campaign: That she is ahead in the national popular vote when all votes are counted, including from the unsanctioned primaries in Michigan and Florida and that party leaders who have a vote as super-delegates should reflect this level of appeal.

This argument is of a piece with Mrs. Clinton’s increasingly populist image, as a fighter on behalf of average people, but it is also a debatable claim: Most tallies of the national popular vote put Mr. Obama in the lead, especially when Michigan and Florida are not counted.

Isn't there an empirical issue here? If by popular vote, you mean actual votes, the only way this claim is credible is if you count all Clinton's votes in Florida and Michigan and count no votes in Michigan for Obama. It is not hard for the NYT to explain this and show that Clinton's claim is fallacious - not "pugnacious." So why do they punt?