Here’s an interesting description of Craig Newmark, or “the Craig behind Craigslist” as he’s often referred to:

“I’m a hard-wired nerd with symptoms I’m told border on Asperger’s Syndrome. That means I’m too trusting, often socially inept, have difficulty shifting focus, and frequently am unsure what to do in situations others handle easily. And I don’t have a normal person’s ability to sense when someone might be looking to take advantage of these shortcomings.”

That description, of course, came from Newmark himself — in a blog post this weekend, complaining about the ambush interview of him several weeks ago by CNN reporter Amber Lyon. Newmark looked helpless and lost in the interview about why Craigslist continues to carry “adult services” sex ads; his blog comments essentially agreed with that characterization. (See it here.)

“Successfully ambushing me is about as big an accomplishment as stealing nuts from one of the birds or squirrels I like to Tweet about,” he wrote.

“I should have said, ‘Hey, thanks, but Jim [Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, is] the guy your viewers should hear from.’ Instead, I froze and looked clueless, and, worse than that, uncaring. Clueless I definitely am sometimes, but not uncaring. Neither is Craigslist and neither is Jim. I know our folks have worked very hard to identify and do the right thing with legitimate versus illegitimate adult service ads. From what I can tell that’s a lot more difficult to do perfectly than is being portrayed by CNN and other media. …

“Amber, CNN, and others are depicting Jim and I as profiteers oblivious to the welfare of women and children. Anyone that’s followed us over all these years knows that’s not at all what we’re about. In reality, we’re both pretty obsessed with trying to make the world a better place … .”

Oh, Craig! …

If your longtime PR mouthpiece Susan MacTavish Best hasn’t arranged for media training for you, she should. Immediately. And you should have a stock answer when anyone asks why you’re willing to take in so much revenue on sex ads. “Because we want to” is a perfectly legitimate response. Or, “Because we help law enforcement stamp out exploitation when we hear about it.” Or, “Because people would advertise elsewhere; why not with us?” Or whatever you want to say. The first certainly might make you look uncaring; as for the others — well, you and Jim, and Craigslist as a company, are all entitled to do whatever the heck you want to. But would you please stop dishing out the “We do everything for the good of the community” nonsense? We just can’t take it any longer.

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In a somewhat related vein, the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday took a well-reported, nuanced look at the issues surrounding the sex-ads-on-Craigslist battles. It asked  legitimate questions about whether Craigslist could or should eliminate sex ads, and, “Is the company more culpable for such ads than the alternative weekly newspapers whose pages are filled with them? …

“It also isn’t clear how much removing the adult section would accomplish, as the ads may simply migrate to other parts of the site – or, for that matter, spill onto rogue, offshore Internet services. That could make it more difficult to monitor these crimes and prosecute pimps, as Craigslist retains information about the posters of ads and cooperates with law enforcement,” the article said.

Good questions, all. No easy answers.