So Much for the NY Times' New Public Editor

and the idea that he might open up some windows at the "old grey lady".

Mr. Calame's first real column is responding to wing-nuts criticizing the NYTimes coverage of the CIA air rendition story:

The Thinking Behind a Close Look at a C.I.A. Operation
By BYRON CALAME

A STRIKING number of readers have denounced The New York Times for describing the Central Intelligence Agency's covert air operations for transporting suspected terrorists in a Page 1 article on May 31.

The 2,900-word article focused on a C.I.A.-affiliated company, Aero Contractors Ltd., whose planes are often used when the agency wants to grab a suspected member of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country. The legal term for this is rendition, and the practical result is interrogation in a country with looser rules on what constitutes torture. Given the heated public debate over the rendition program, the article's detailed look at the C.I.A. air operations was especially controversial.

The generally strident e-mail messages demanded to know why The Times had decided to publish information that the readers believe will aid terrorists and make life in the United States less safe for everyone - especially the people carrying out the operation. Most of them didn't seem to be aware that the once-secret air operations had been mentioned in earlier articles and broadcasts elsewhere.

So it seems like an apt time to explore with readers The Times's process for handling covert intelligence stories as the war on terrorism continues. We'll start with a fairly typical reader complaint letter, and then consider a response prepared by one of the reporters and sent by the public editor's office to most of the readers who wrote to us about the article. Finally, I'll offer some comments from Times editors and my thoughts about the process.

Granted, he is defending the paper against these charges, but jeesh, this is the top priority for him? Responding to wing-nuts? After I and others wrote to him asking for more investigation into 9/11?

We're screwed.