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.....

[poity]

I figured you were making a snide quip which was cool, but now that your post has been modded "+5 Insightful" I feel the need to respond, not to your comment (I have no problems with it) but to the general attitude here that would see a joke not as a joke but as an elucidation of some conspiracy by the NYT author to smear Assange.

In an article about personal dealings with Assange and not about Wikileaks, describing the man through someone's eyes helps to ground the scene of the story, making it more vivid and engaging. Did he not appear disheveled, did he not look tired? If indeed, then it's a vivid way of describing a man who had prioritized his work above even his own hygiene and upkeep, which gives you a sense of how involved and single-minded Assange was in pursuing his ideals -- it gives you the sense that he truly believes Wikileaks is important, more so perhaps than even himself. The short description can say all that without being tiresomely explicit. This kind of story-telling is what makes an article a captivating read, a veiled attempt to make Assange look bad is really the last thing it could be.

Just throwing some sense out hoping to dilute the deep cynicism and paranoia I see here.
I kindly ask everyone to read the entire article first before judging it as an attempt to discredit. I think it's a captivating story worth reading.

Re:Based on the Cover.....

[MoldySpore]

Experience. A close friend of mine was raped. She didn't throw a party for her attacker. The only thing she did was report it to police, who were immediately able to administer a rape kit, get samples, including semen, photos of forced entry bruising and tearing, and testified in court against him. She did not throw him a party nor did she let him stay at her place for a week after the attack.

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.

Who wants some hot...

[Vernes]

...character assassination!? Piping hot character assassination? Get em while they're hot! You Sir? Some nice hot character assassination for the little lady?

Re:Who wants some hot...

[nomadic]

"...character assassination!? Piping hot character assassination? Get em while they're hot! You Sir? Some nice hot character assassination for the little lady?"

No thanks, I'm all full from that piping hot uncritical hero worship fanaticism I had for breakfast.

Re:Who wants some hot...

[spun]

Personally, I'm full up on all the black and white thinking.

Guess what? There is a middle ground where Assange is not a hero, he is a human being, who does good and bad things. We can decry the rush to smear Assange without assuming he is a hero. Nothing in the post you respond to indicates hero worship, and so it really appears as though you are trying to smear all of Assange's defenders as mere unthinking "hero worshipers." Is that your intention?

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: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.

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.

Re:His socks, shoes, coat, hair....

[mapkinase]

From the NYT article:

But in its zeal to make the video a work of antiwar propaganda, WikiLeaks also released a version that didn’t call attention to an Iraqi who was toting a rocket-propelled grenade and packaged the manipulated version under the tendentious rubric “Collateral Murder.”

Hasn't it been addressed already ad hominem that there was no "rocket-propelled grenade " and the object that has been carried was a camera? Did I miss something?