The New York Times vs. Common Decency

The Times deliberately "outs" the interrogator of Khalid Shaik Mohammed despite his pleas and the pleas of the CIA not to name him.

The backstory, revealed today by Times "Public Editor" Clark Hoyt, is even more shocking in its implications. What it reveals about the people who make such decisions at the highest editorial level at the Times is that quite simply, they do not believe that al-Qaeda poses much of a threat to individuals and, by extension, the United States.

And beyond the security calculations is the extraordinary lack of common decency in deliberately and knowingly placing someone's life and the lives of his family in danger. That is perhaps the most telling proof of hubris on the part of the Times. In their little cocoon of arrogance and self importance, they place the life of a man on a scale and weigh it against their own petty policies...

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