That's Mark Landler, a correspondent for The New York Times. We're happy to knock and to praise that paper when we feel it deserves it. But we want to give huge praise to the paper and to Mark Landler for last week.
The most important English language article on Iraq was Landler's report "Iraq Would Accept U.S. Soldiers as Trainers." The article quoted US Vice President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaking publicly after their one-on-one meeting. From the article:
But his comments suggested that for all the solemn pageantry of a war's ending, there is likely to be considerable continuity in the security relationship between the United States and Iraq, as it struggles to contain terrorist attacks by insurgent groups.
The inability of the United States and Iraq to agree on legal immunity for American troops led to President Obama's announcement in October that the last soldiers would leave the country by the end of the year.
But administration officials have suggested that once the withdrawal is complete -- a politically significant milestone in both the United States and Iraq -- the two sides could negotiate the return of American troops to the country for training purposes.
The Administration didn't care for the report, as C.I. documents, and at least one reporter got scared and ran away from it.
It would have been very easy for Landler and the paper to then walk away. They didn't. They stood behind the solid reporting.
There was a time when you'd expect that from an outlet as basic behavior. But these days, it's rather uncommon. And there's no disputing Landler became the first reporter for US outlet to document what is an ongoing process of negotiations taking place now. So we'll applaud The New York Times and we'll hail Mark Landler as the Super Hero of the Week.