Perhaps

"Perhaps" is one of the words that as an editor or as an alert reader always makes me pay close attention to what comes next. A dispatch from San Francisco in today's Times reports, "Perhaps nowhere in America is the debate over income inequality being carried out as fiercely as in San Francisco, where the technology industry's success has led to a roaring economy, social disruption and widespread protests."

Perhaps. Or perhaps it's being carried out just as fiercely (if one-sidedly), in the newsroom of the New York Times, which is crusading on the topic; in New York City, where a mayor was recently elected on the issue, or in Washington, D.C., where President Obama has called it the defining issue of our time. Why reach for the superlative, which the "perhaps" concedes is just hype? The article could have just said, "The debate over income inequality is raging in San Francisco, where the technology industry's success has led to a roaring economy, social disruption and widespread protests."