The New York Times used its pages Monday to allow anonymous State Department officials to speak favorably about John Kerry’s major speech outlining the Obama administration’s plan for peace in the Middle East.
A senior State Department official said that Mr. Kerry, who will be out of office in three weeks, would use his remarks to “address some of the misleading critiques” directed at the Obama administration. […]
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a coming speech, said Mr. Kerry would also argue that, with the notable exception of Israel, there was a “complete international consensus” against further settlements in areas that might ultimately be the subject of negotiations .
Interestingly enough, the article then claims, “it is unclear what Mr. Kerry hopes to achieve from the speech.”
Did the Times not ask its anonymous sources for that information? Were the paper’s nameless sources only willing to discuss things that paint the State Department in a positive light?
What’s the point of allowing a government official to speak anonymously, and to do so in in terms that favor federal officials, if you can’t answer basic questions like, “What’s the purpose of this speech?”
Anyway, though the Times failed to answer that question, it does go to great lengths explaining why Kerry is now giving the speech. The paper’s nameless source claimed the secretary of state wanted to give the speech earlier, but he was held back by White House officials.
The source also said Kerry wanted to give the speech last week, but changed his mind after “Egypt, under pressure from Mr. Netanyahu, postponed voting on” a United Nations resolution “condemning Israel’s continued building of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
The United States, for its part, abstained from voting on the resolution, which the Times reported “infuriat[ed]” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The report, which does little more than float Kerry’s upcoming speech to test for reactions, ends with the say-so of yet even more anonymous officials, this time supposed aides to the secretary of state himself.
“Mr. Kerry’s desire, his aides said, is to focus the discussion on several of the longrunning disputes that have upended decades of negotiation attempts: where to draw borders, how to establish security, the status of Jerusalem, how to handle mutual recognition of Israeli and Palestinian states. Each is filled with land mines, and Mr. Kerry’s speech will no doubt contain many of the code words that mean so much to both sides, and that have hardened so many positions over the years,” the Times reported.
In reporting, there are times when it’s necessary to grant sources anonymity so they can speak without fear of retaliation. This Kerry article does not really seem to justify that.
