What is happening to Anthony Shadid?

Ambition may be bad for one in one's career. The higher you go in the hierarchy, the more compromises you will be forced to make. Working in mainstream media, especially the so-called prestigious ones, will erase your personality and tailer your opinions to those of the publisher. Why am I getting the impression that Shadid is getting more careless since he moved to the Times? Look at the sweeping generalizations that he makes about history and time among Middle Eastern people. And then he tells me this about Iraq: "The country is neither occupied nor independent." What was that? So 100,000 armed troops and the country is not occupied? This is like the US government insisting that it won't interfere in the formation of a government in Iraq and yet it sends one envoy after another to accomplish just that.

PS Also, what does he mean here: "Perspective becomes politics. So does patience." Is that uniquely Middle Eastern in his estimation?