David Bell’s “terrorism? schmerrorism” piece from Sunday was originally titled “Was 9/11 really that bad?” — at least on the Web. A Google search for that title reveals numerous hits, the first of which is a link to the piece itself. And here is a reproduction of the piece with that title.

But that provocative title has been replaced with the more innocuous headline Putting 9/11 into perspective.

Someone has lost the courage of their convictions. But it may not be Bell, who may have disagreed with the original headline all along. As I learned when I placed my own pieces in The Times, op-ed contributors don’t write the headlines — and sometimes they disagree with the tone of the titles placed on their pieces. I wouldn’t be surprised if the headline change was demanded by Bell himself, who might have thought the original title was too flippant.