NYTimes On Dealings With Assange

kaapstorm found an NYT story on Assange saying "Assange slouched into The Guardian office, a day late. Schmitt took his first measure of the man who would be a large presence in our lives. 'He's tall — probably 6-foot-2 or 6-3 — and lanky, with pale skin, gray eyes and a shock of white hair that seizes your attention,' Schmitt wrote to me later. 'He was alert but disheveled, like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a dingy, light-colored sport coat and cargo pants, dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles. He smelled as if he hadn't bathed in days.'"

Comments

Based on the Cover.....

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You see? Assange is dirty and smelly; he can't be trusted! Real heroes look and smell fantastic!

Re:Based on the Cover.....

[MoldySpore]

Last I checked, rape victims don't throw their attackers a party after they are raped.

Re:Based on the Cover.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Men or women, heroes or cowards all should not forcefully complete a sex act when consent has been withdrawn. This should be universally accepted but is apparently not.

Re:Based on the Cover.....

[Draek]

No, we're talking about an AC's accussations stating Assange had committed rape. He didn't, end of argument.

If you or the AC want to discuss sexual impropiety, *then* we'd look at the weird Swedish laws and the even weirder accussations leveled against Assange, but that's another subject altogether.

Re:Based on the Cover.....

[houghi]

And the real reason is here: http://houghi.org/Fun/4L3O6E9.jpg

Re:Based on the Cover.....

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

a veiled attempt to make Assange look bad is really the last thing it could be.

It seems you missed the earlier sentence, the one that says he "slouched into the office" and looked like "a bag lady." Both of those comparisons are explicitly uncomplimentary. I read the entire article when it was first published and what I took away from it was a writer who has some personal issues with Assange trying his damndest to wrap up his insults in a thin veneer of professional neutrality and wordsmithing.

For example, he took a shot at Assange for describing wikileak's goal as "scientific journalism" - which is the term wikileaks has been using for the practice of providing all source materials for a story to the reader along with the story itself. The writer hand-waved that the the NYT has been doing just that for years now, when as reader of the NYT online for years now, I can't recall them ever providing full sources and have frequently been frustrated by their lack of any sources.

His socks, shoes, coat, hair....

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Thanks for sticking to the important stuff!

Seems a rational description...

[bjk002]

for a man essentially in hiding, trying to avoid being extradited to an unfriendly (to him) country, which happens to have one of the most robust intelligence arms in the world.

Can't read TFA as a NYTimes account is required to access (where are the link tags? They're too helpful to exclude in the new layout/design).

Despite your politics I think you can appreciate the gravity of such a situation and how the attributable paranoia and personal apprehension may manifest itself within an individual.

Fuck 'em

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that, the New York Times and The Guardian pissing on the guy doing the job they failed to do.

fuck you both. fuck you both very hard.

Re:Fuck 'em

[Luke has no name]

That's EXACTLY why they'd piss on him.

The lamestream media is angry that someone is uncovering the truth about our government.

Re:Fuck 'em

[spun]

More importantly, the owners of the media are angry someone is uncovering the truth about their robber-baron lifestyle. The government is just a tool, and it is really our tool, we do not have to let the rich use it against us.

Re:curiouser and curiouser.

[gknoy]

Heros are real people (with flaws) who choose to do something amazing, by choice or by accident, and often because they feel it's necessary or self-serving.

Bradley Manning is the real hero

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone seems to forget that Julian Assange is just a credit-stealing con-man.

Bradley Manning put his career, and possibly his life (if convicted of treason) at risk to collect material to expose the treachery and hypocrisy he saw within US dealings with foreign powers - especially the recent wars. Whereas Julian Assange simply put the material on a webstie, then stole all the glory.
Assange even put up a website supposedly devoted to raising money for Manning's legal defense - then kept the money.
And it is looking like the rape charges against Assange may be real.
BUT - the /. crowd likes Assange better because he adopts the costume of an anti-authority web sophisticate, whereas Manning wore a uniform.
IMHO - Assange is a sleazy narcissistic con-man, and Bradley Manning is the unsung hero of this story.

Re:with a review THAT off-topic

[MightyMartian]

If I knew the US government was gunning for me, and that at least a few of its politicians wanted me lined up in front of a firing squad, I'm sure "fairly unstable and paranoid" would be among several applicable adjectives that would be applicable.