NYT news reporter versus the US, again

Apparently the Association of Opinion Page Editors is far more tolerant of anti-American tirades that is the student body at Rockford (Ill) College.

Here's what New York Times reporter Chris Hedges said in his address to the opinion page editors' annual conference (as reported by Opinion Journal's James Taranto, quoting The American Spectator):

"We're absolutely reviled around the world, as we should be," Hedges said. "Our only friends are war criminals"--a reference, he explained, to Ariel Sharon and Vladimir Putin.

America's amoral, bloodthirsty ways and the hate they generate would be much plainer to the American people, Hedges said, if only so many journalists weren't "trapped" by the government's war clichés and oriented to a Washington-centric view of the world. This group, he said, included his bosses at the Times.

There is no indication in the article of why Hedges, notably not an opinion journalist, was a featured speaker at the conference (except to promote a book he had written).

18 months ago, Taranto also reported on a Hedges anti-American tirade (this time quoting the Rockford, Ill. Register Star). That time round the audience, the Rockford College graduating class, booed Hedges off the stage.