In 2005 when New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald published his expose of Internet child porn, an expose written after he, his wife and an Episcopalian priest undertook a dangerous “rescue mission” designed to extricate a teenager from the exploitive position he’d been in for almost a decade, Eichenwald had no way of knowing his good deed would lead to his reputation, career and life being ruined by an alliance of pedophiles and leftists who saw Eichenwald’s “conservative” attack on sexual sadism a betrayal of their movement.

With an undertone of finger wagging disapproval New York Magazine details the meltdown of Eichenwald’s career in an article that seems to suggest being a “good journalist” is more important a good person. In reading through the piece you see that author David France, while almost sympathetic at times, severely disapproves of Eichenwald’s desire to help the boy he saw as a victim. France believes, seemingly, that it is a hero complex that has ultimately led to Eichenwald’s demise:

As much as the stories provided a window into a seldom-seen world, they also raised troubling questions about how they were reported—and ultimately about the man who reported them. To start with, Eichenwald made himself a character in the story about Berry—highly unusual for the New York Times. The reporter appeared as a savior, working to win Berry’s trust and finally rescuing him from the business he’d fallen into and delivering him back to his religious faith. But once Eichenwald became part of the story, others began to ask questions: Why would a Times reporter believe he should go into the rescuing business? And how had he accomplished what he’d accomplished? (Reporting on child pornography is inherently difficult, because looking at the images themselves is illegal, even for a journalist.) And behind those questions is a more fundamental one: What drives the people who fill these roles, criminal and pursuer, obsessive fan and obsessive foe?

With the country’s vexed relationship to youthful sexuality as the backdrop, Eichenwald’s stories, hectoring as they were about the evils they were uncovering, had a kind of prurient power that is undeniably related to the power of pornography. The cure and the disease are impossible to separate.

Now Eichenwald has been ensnared by his own campaign. His reporting methods are under intense scrutiny, and he’s been pilloried by other journalists, by pro-sex activists, and by people whom his investigations helped to put in jail.

As the controversy has grown, Eichenwald has bunkered himself in his Dallas home. He has family members answer his doorbell. As our talk began, he closed the doors of his home office, which is tightly shuttered against a beautiful morning, though there is no one in the house but the two of us and the family’s three-legged dog, Maggie.

The fight he’s found himself in has wreaked havoc on his life. He’s teary, volatile, largely unable to work. He left the Times, then walked away from a large contract at Portfolio. His career is in tatters. For this, he blames a campaign by the convicts he’s exposed, other child molesters he doesn’t even know, random anonymous bloggers, and journalists, specifically the advocacy journalist Debbie Nathan, who has written several long pieces questioning his reporting methods and whom he calls “the high priestess of pedophilia.” He believes they are acting in concert to destroy him, professionally and emotionally.

France’s raised eyebrows at Eichenwald and his advocacy for exploited teens is starkly juxtaposed to the passing and uncritical treatment Debbie Nathan receives when she’s shows up on page 5 of the article:

Deeper issues surfaced almost immediately. The journalist Debbie Nathan (who has written for New York Magazine) became interested in Eichenwald’s Internet-sex pieces while doing research about child-pornography laws, which she believes should be amended to allow journalists and other researchers to verify the government’s impression of them. She thought that Eichenwald, whose stories seemed to imply he’d viewed lots of illegal sites, was given some sort of free pass by the Feds in part because he seemed so personally invested in promoting prosecution. Yet in an e-mail exchange, he denied viewing the sites, except by accident, which he said made it legal under certain circumstances.

Her Salon article was strident and prosecutorial, steeped in incredulity about Eichenwald’s methods. “Really? He didn’t know? Wasn’t hunting? Please!”

Eichenwald and the Times deny that Eichenwald did anything illegal in reporting the story. After the Nathan article, Eichenwald says he feared he might be arrested, or his children removed from his home based on her declaration that he illegally viewed underage porn. He instructed his personal lawyer to sue her for $10 million and publicly declared, “My wife and I have instructed our financial adviser to set aside $100,000 to finance the initial portions of this lawsuit.” So far he hasn’t sued, but in a private, seething e-mail to her, he wrote, “People like you are the maggots of journalism.” He later wrote a rambling, 2,600-word letter to Romenesko, the media blog, putting all other journalists on notice. “If you choose to rely on this conflicted woman for your reports, you do so at your own legal peril.”

Nathan has continued to battle Eichenwald with a fervor that mirrors his, writing about him for Counterpunch, and also in a short piece for this magazine’s Website. Nathan’s pro bono lawyer, the former New York corporation counsel Victor Kovner, says the whole affair left him stunned. “He flipped,” says Kovner. “It was ridiculous. But it turns out there are problems of which she was totally unaware, some of which have come to light.”

Nathan is treated in the article as if she’s a “real” journalist, though she clearly advocates a stance on children’s sexuality, and pornographic record keeping practices, that appeals mainly to pedophiles.

She also doesn’t believe that there are sex slaves in the U.S., perhaps taking the stand that the hundreds of Chinese, Latin American and Russian women who are sequestered in warehouses in and around NYC spend hours a day having sex with random men as a sex positive feminist statement.

So who is Debbie Nathan? She’s an award winning author who takes credit for single handedly debunking the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s while rarely if ever admitting that it was Fundamentalist Christian Magazine Cornerstone which first began casting doubt on Satanic Ritual Abuse and it’s most famous proponent within the Christian community that had embraced it. Her crusade against false reporting has transformed into advocacy of the worst kind as she attacks America’s “puritanical attitudes” toward children and sex. Debbie Nathan is a hold over from another age, a “feminist” who crusades against what is considered the excesses of feminism in the arena of sex.

It was at one time a popular stance that made women popular with both men and young women turned off by the anti-sex neo-Victorianism of the feminist establishment. Think of her as a pre-Internet Amanda Marcotte.

She also has been spearheading an effort to force the government to allow “journalists” and other researchers to purchase and view child pornography. This undoubtedly has many proponents who know that modern media has given almost anyone the ability to claim journalist status.

Eichenwald’s assumption that Nathan would be in league with pedophiles seeking to tarnish his reputation seems less paranoid when reading her writings which imply that pedophiles aren’t sexual sadists aroused by their ability to dominate children and cause them pain, but part of life’s “sexual diversity” which should be studied.

She is also, if we were to be objective, a victim of a “hero complex” as her tireless crusade to “liberate” children’s sexuality seems obsessive to say the least. But it is Eichenwald who is painted by the media as obsessive and France’s article is no different. In the acrimony and hostility aimed at Eichenwald, the criminality of the Justin Berry case is often underplayed:

Another of the cases the Berry story spurred involves Tim “Casey” Richards, a 23-year-old Internet-porn star who faces 220 years in prison when he goes for sentencing in December. Berry hired him to help run JustinsFriends in return for a share of the profits. “The first thing he asked me to do was upload a preview video,” says Richards over the phone from a Tennessee jail—the video featuring Berry and Taylor side by side. Richards says he was specifically told Taylor was an adult. A bio for Taylor also stated he was “18, almost 19.”

Richards was convicted on eleven counts of child pornography, both involving his role in distributing the Taylor video and videos he had made of an ex-boyfriend when the boyfriend was underage. “There was more hysteria surrounding Tim’s case than any other federal case I’ve ever handled,” says Peter Strianse, an attorney for Richards. “I don’t know if the government was being driven by that article in the New York Times, but it’s as if they felt they had to do something and make representations to the court that Tim was one of the largest purveyors of child pornography that they have ever encountered.”

“Casey” is the object of much sympathy but even in this sympathetic portrayal of him, we find a person who at 24 took pictures of himself performing sexually with his “underaged boyfriend.” Since the age of consent in most states is 16, we can reasonable assume that Casey’s supposed boyfriend was somewhere between 15 and 17. Why are we supposed to feel sorry for a 24 year old man who is molesting a 15 year old on film, then selling it, when he goes to jail?

Or the rest of the sorry crew of child pornographers for that matter? Maybe we should ask Gawker, Counterpunch, F.A.I.R., and all the other outfits “troubled” by Kurt Eichenwald’s tragic tale.

Read the entire article. I don’t know Kurt Eichenwald and why he was driven to help this kid. The snarky insinuations are that he was a pedophile feeling guilty. Maybe. Or maybe he was molested.

Or maybe he’s just a good guy who tried to do the right thing.

But even if the Debbie Nathan’s of the world are right about him how does it change the case? These people purchased, traded and produce child pornography. Is that now a right/left issue? Are we who want child pornographers arrested all “wingnuts’ now? Is it really so strange to want to help a person in a bad situation?

Haven’t you ever helped someone? Wouldn’t French or Nathan or even Amanda Marcotte extend themselves to others who really need it? Don’t we all have a responsibility to protect those who can’t protect themselves? And I don’t mean we as in the government, I mean you and me.

Debbie Nathan would say no I suppose, but luckily Kurt Eichenwald felt different. Now he’s paying the price for doing what’s right.