These hatchet jobs are petty tiresome. How stupid do they think readers are? If there is a suggestion that Assange, who is a publisher, has failed to publish documents leaked to him that would embarrass Russia (or anyone else for that matter) then they have something.

But they aren't suggesting he's selectively publishing leaks. So I guess they want him to publish documents nobody has leaked to him by use of the 27th dimension? The NYT itself, while usually excellent, has acknowledged failings in that regard.

So now we play guess the NYT motive. Is it patriotism, wikileaks publications embarrass the US so let's hatchet them. Is it support for Hilary - email leaks are embarrassing to her campaign that they will probably support so muddy the source as much as possible? Is it jealousy of the sheer number of scoops, which are the journalists currency of bragging rights given Assange is not "one of them" and hasn't "paid his dues" and if they would have played his hand differently (as we all would have). Is it something else? Whatever the reason the bias is pretty clear.

I want to make this explicit. I am no more a supporter of wikileaks than I am a supporter of the New York Times. I support both in terms of their rights to do journalism and neither in terms of speaking for me or agreeing with what they say on all issues. I like the NYT, it's a pretty good newspaper. Somehow especially when they write on wikileaks they embarrass themselves pretty consistently about an eccentric activist journalist who used tech to scoop them on big stories and maintains a perfect reputation for protecting sources and for publishing. The NYT's reputation has suffered on both counts.

Full disclosure - I've given the NYT money but not wikileaks.