Anyway, thanks to our Left Coast colleague Simbaud, at King of Zembla (a fine blog that's well worth a daily read), comes a pointer to Naomi's latest in the UK Guardian:
...Dear Mr Johnson, On November 26, your press counselor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".
The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested...
That a U.S. Ambassador would take the time to write to a foreign news outlet in an attempt to intimidate a celebrated journalist like Klien is, to use the British term, in bad form. Note to Ambassador Johnson: this isn't the weak-knee U.S. press you're dealing with here. That the Guardian gave Naomi the opportunity to respond and further slam U.S. policy in Iraq should be instructive to the Ambassador.
In some parts of the world, the concept of a free and critical press still resonates.
