It's what one would expect from Robert Fisk or dozens of other European journalists. Or, for that matter, from writers for liberal U.S. magazines such as the Nation or Harper's, which have long seen our claims to have a noble, moral foreign policy as a ruse to cover up brutal Realpolitik.

But it's not the sort of public declaration one would expect from a high-profile reporter for the most powerful American newspaper -- especially at a time when that paper, which insists it's a champion of thoughtful, nonpartisan journalism, faces more criticism than ever that it's often an echo chamber for strident liberalism.

That's why even now -- after Howell Raines, after years of bile from Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd, even after the attempt to turn an old missing-explosives story into an election-eve bombshell -- it was astounding to hear Chris Hedges of the New York Times go off Saturday morning at a forum held here as part of the annual conference of the Association of Opinion Page Editors.

Hedges was invited to talk about his book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Many editors on hand were probably aware of Hedges' notoriety for a commencement address he gave in May 2003 at a small Illinois college in which he was booed off the stage for criticizing the war on Iraq. But no one expected Hedges to offer up an indictment of American foreign policy as sweeping and angry as our strongest Arab critics or nastiest MIT linguistics professor.

"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 was absolutely no interest in my newspaper in presenting the views of the French" as the U.S. moved toward war in Iraq, Hedges said. Instead, there was lots of guffawing over anti-French jokes, which he termed "racist."

Who knew? The New York Times' newsroom is a place where mockery of France is so severe that a heroic, hardy, death-defying war correspondent would consider it tantamount to workplace harassment.