Late Monday evening, The New York Times posted a piece titled "Obama pushes for approval of Syria military strike," which in its original form featured these two paragraphs:

Administration officials said the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee was already at work pressing for military action against the government of Assad, fearing that if Syria escapes American retribution for its use of chemical weapons, Iran might be emboldened in the future to attack Israel. In the House, the majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, has long worked to challenge Democrats’ traditional base among Jews. One administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing White House strategy, called AIPAC “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” and said its allies in Congress had to be saying, “If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line” against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, “we’re in trouble.”

The piece appeared in Tuesday's edition, but around 5 a.m. ET on Tuesday morning, The Atlantic and Bloomberg View's Jeffrey Goldberg noticed something:

Unless I'm mistaken, the @nytimes has cut all references to AIPAC from this story: http://t.co/itdD3e2BDC — Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) September 3, 2013

Something seemed amiss in the land of the Grey Lady. But thanks to the wonderful power of the Internet, where nothing ever disappears from the record, even if The Times had wanted it to disappear, the quote didn't disappear completely. Some people noticed the passage still lived in the version that ran in the Boston Globe (which until last month was owned by The Times) syndicated version of the story, though.

People began wondering where and why this newsworthy passage about an important, influential lobbying group's work on Capitol Hill to whip votes for the President's plan to strike Syria had gone, and the Times remained silent about the whole thing through most of the morning. There was no update or correction amended to the story online, which had been almost entirely rewritten. The Times' passage about "the 800 pound gorilla in the room" became its own 800 pound gorilla in the room as Times watchdogs began sniffing for a possible explanation. Times' political reporter Michael Barbaro got into a spat with Huffington Post media reporter Michael Calderone over the missing quotes:

NYT cuts AIPAC reference in Syria article: http://t.co/ON8fJvmXv9 Article almost completely rewritten per NewsDiffs: http://t.co/xmvgl57Iuh — Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) September 3, 2013

@mlcalderone News flash: we edit at NYT. Stories change. — Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) September 3, 2013

@mikiebarb Be dismissive if you like. But people question when NYT significantly rewrites stories/ removes quotes with no mention of changes — Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) September 3, 2013

Blogger MJ Rosenberg noticed the missing passage, too, and offered this theory: "Obviously the White House and/or AIPAC did not want to be caught saying that the reason we are attacking Syria is to show AIPAC, the “800 pound gorilla,” that we are serious about the war the lobby really craves: Iran." Goldberg offered his own perspective, and confirmed the AIPAC's lobbying, in an interview with Politico's Dylan Byers. "I don't know what's going on, but it's very strange. It doesn't make sense that it was cut for space in the print edition, because the AIPAC passage was quite newsworthy. Plus, there's obviously no space issue on the Web. It seems plausible that someone from AIPAC, or the White House, complained about the accuracy of the passage," he told Byers.