That's a very troubling quote, so I went to the article, hoping it wasn't as bad as it sounded. But it seemed bad in the article, too.
The lead-up alludes to what I suspect was the author's intent, in that way of putting it (i.e., saying the effect relative to some goals of the assassin), but that's really not communicated as clearly as it must be.
I can understand that a writer might miss this communication failure, when in tunnel vision on some narrow point they were trying to make. But I'd hope a professional editor would've caught it. Perhaps there's an understated standard proofreading markup notation like "WTF?!" with a firmly-pressed circle around it. Then the writer would realize their communication mistake, and feel awful about it, but also relived it was caught before publication.
Ideally, that never would've made it to publication without editing. But a small consolation is that at least we readers can learn from the mistake, and be less likely to make that mistake ourselves.
The lead-up alludes to what I suspect was the author's intent, in that way of putting it (i.e., saying the effect relative to some goals of the assassin), but that's really not communicated as clearly as it must be.
I can understand that a writer might miss this communication failure, when in tunnel vision on some narrow point they were trying to make. But I'd hope a professional editor would've caught it. Perhaps there's an understated standard proofreading markup notation like "WTF?!" with a firmly-pressed circle around it. Then the writer would realize their communication mistake, and feel awful about it, but also relived it was caught before publication.
Ideally, that never would've made it to publication without editing. But a small consolation is that at least we readers can learn from the mistake, and be less likely to make that mistake ourselves.