
Assange Casts Himself as Persecuted Whistle-Blower - mjfern
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/world/europe/assange-casts-himself-as-persecuted-whistle-blower.html?hp&gwh=E2363C239F3213F98307AD4DADF09654
======
nextstep
Is he not a persecuted whistle-blower?

Ah, the hypocrisy of the NY Times is enraging. Didn't they publish the leaked
documents as well?! What cowards.

~~~
gmoore
Look back - I think you will find that the NY Times did indeed publish some of
the leaked documents...

~~~
gwern
And if you look more carefully, you'll find why the NYT comes up with these
hilariously slanted headlines and salt misleading tidbits into various
articles (like Assange and Domscheit's cat): the Ombudsman wrote about their
interactions with Assange, and they clearly disliked his demands and treatment
of them.

One does not engage in lèse majesté with the Grey Lady.

------
electrichead
I'm curious: was there anything that damning in the info that was released
through wikileaks? I didn't really follow the story there with the diplomatic
cables.

~~~
snogglethorpe
A lot of the information in the leaked diplomatic cables seemed to be simply
embarrassing/socially-awkward, of the "The local population thinks President X
is a doodyhead, and he throws huge tantrums when event Y is mentioned; be
aware" sort.

That sort of stuff caused diplomatic friction, for no obvious gain. One of the
dodgier things about wikileaks (and claims that what they were doing was akin
to journalism) was that they released so much of it, if their goal was somehow
revealing corruption or something.

[It certainly fit private Bradley Manning's goals, as he _did_ just want to
cause embarrassment. But wikileaks itself was supposed to be doing something
more noble.]

