You know, I was just guilty of doing what I always make fun of trolls for doing: commenting based on the title without reading the article first. But I've just read it and I see that I've also done the second thing I make fun of trolls for doing: attacking something other than what the author said. So I take back what I said. It's true, but beside the point.

I do still disagree with him slightly. It's not hard to imagine things one might want to tell about themselves only off the record. Especially about one's health: there are lots of medical conditions someone might be embarrassed to have other people know about.

But I was wrong to suggest that he distrusted off the record statements generally. It should have set off warning signals that I was accusing an experienced reporter of making such an elementary mistake.

One reason I didn't read the article was that it was so long. That's probably one reason people so often do this to me.