The Nature of Things

The liberal blogosphere and various liberal commentators ( see Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann ) hail Julian Assange, the Wikileaks guy, as a hero who is just doing what a good journalist would do - if there were any good journalists left. They excoriate the judicial system of Sweden for insisting that Assange must face the charges of rape that have been lodged against him by two women. The charges are all political, they cry. I doubt it. I don't think women are generally thinking in a political way when they charge a man with rape and I see no reason to believe that Assange's accusers were. So what were the Swedish authorities to do? Ignore the complaints? Sweep it all under the rug? It's what happens in all too many countries of the world today with crimes against women and I'm very much afraid that it happens all too often in this country. But not, apparently, in Sweden. So Keith Olbermann has been in high dudgeon all week railing and fulminating, as he i...

There was a time when the leaking of secret government information served a useful and even noble purpose. I'm thinking in particular of the leaking of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg , the purpose of which was to inform and educate the American people about what the government was doing in their name. It was to expose wrong-doing in the hopes that the people would put a stop to it. The event did have an effect on public opinion in those days. People were appalled that they had been so grossly lied to by their government and it helped to turn public opinion against the Vietnam War. That was back in the days of our innocence when we still were capable of being appalled. But frankly, in my opinion, Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks guy , is no Daniel Ellsberg, and no higher purpose is being served by his organization's incessant leaking of confidential information . The only goal seems to be the greater notoriety of WikiLeaks and the greater glorification (in certain qu...