Oh, gee. Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, is terribly upset. In his view, Julian Assange is the very scruffy model of a modern major-general. File his complaint under Gilbert and Sullivan; see The Pirates of Penzance. Keller is a mirthless feller.
I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I’m very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
I know our mythic history, King Arthur’s and Sir Caradoc’s;
I answer hard acrostics, I’ve a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I’ve heard the music’s din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you ev’ry detail of Caractacus’s uniform:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
In fact, when I know what is meant by “mamelon” and “ravelin”,
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a Javelin,
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I’m more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by “commissariat”,
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery–
In short, when I’ve a smattering of elemental strategy–
You’ll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.
For my military knowledge, though I’m plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
Postscript: Jan. 29 — William Osborne’s comment below is dead on. Here are just two of the “choicest details” from the article highlighted by The Atlantic:
“He [Assange] 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.”
And:
“The derelict with the backpack and the sagging socks now wore his hair dyed and styled, and he favored fashionably skinny suits and ties. He became a kind of cult figure for the European young and leftish and was evidently a magnet for women.”
Now notice the cover headline on the print edition of The NYT Magazine: The Boy Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, an obvious play on the title of the Steig Larsson novel, but it certainly serves the purpose of degrading Assange. It could have been written, The Man Who… but that would have been contrary to the tone of Keller’s story. A more accurate reflection of the tone would have been the The Dirtbag Who … or The Derelict Who … or The Smelly One Who … or The Paranoiac Who … It might as well have been any of those.
The principle message one gets from Keller’s article is that anyone who challenges the established media’s monopoly on the news is going to be labeled “un-bathed,” “paranoid,” “disheveled,” similar to a “bag lady,” “dingy,” “filthy,” “smelly,” and “contemptuous of the American government.”
Oh dear, it seems that truth is now unpatriotic and has poor hygiene. I assume Judith Miller was well-scrubbed while she helped The New York Times set up the second Iraq War with a pack of lies.