MB Civic

Glenzilla at his new site @ The Guardian ..

the personalized nature of this contempt from self-styled sober journalists often borders on the creepy .. Former New York Times’ executive editor Bill Keller infamously quoted an email from a Times reporter claiming that Assange wore “filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles” and “smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in days.” On the very same day WikiLeaks released over 400,000 classified documents showing genuinely horrific facts about massive civilian deaths in the Iraq war and US complicity in torture by Iraqi forces, the New York Times front-paged an article purporting to diagnose Assange with a variety of psychological afflictions and concealed, malicious motives, based on its own pop-psychology observations and those of Assange’s enemies (“erratic and imperious behavior”, “a nearly delusional grandeur”, “he is not in his right mind”, “pursuing a vendetta against the United States”). A columnist for the Independent, Joan Smith, recently watched Assange’s interview of Ecuadorean president Rafeal Correa and offered up this wisdom: “He’s put on weight, his face is puffy and he didn’t bother to shave before his interview with Correa.” And perhaps most psychologically twisted of all: a team of New York Times reporters and editors last week, in its lead article about Ecuador’s decision to grant asylum, decided it would be appropriate to include a quote from one of Assange’s most dedicated enemies claiming that when the WikiLeaks founder was a visitor in his apartment, he “refused to flush the toilet during his entire stay” (faced with a barrage of mockery and disgust over their reporting on Assange’s alleged toilet habits, the NYT sheepishly deleted that passage without comment)

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