Why are Bob Woodward's WH sources - or Woodward himself - not on trial next to Bradley Manning?

[struggle4progress]

9. Bob Woodward is no Bradley Manning

The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald gets it wrong by comparing the two
By Jeb Golinkin
January 11, 2013

... Greenwald's primary argument strikes me as dangerously extreme.

Essentially, Greenwald argues that the government's theory — that Manning is guilty of a crime for revealing classified information that eventually found its way into the hands of al Qaeda leaders — applies with equal force to the country's most prolific investigative journalist, Bob Woodward, who regularly manages to pry classified information out of his sources and almost as regularly publishes it on the front page of The Washington Post or in one of his many best-selling books ... Put simply, Bob Woodward never had a duty, and never took an oath, to protect the government's secrets or follow the orders of anyone in the government ...

... Woodward's job is to try to acquire and reveal government secrets for the benefit of the public at large, even though this often involves compromising government priorities.

Bradley Manning had very different responsibilities as a member of the United States Army. When Private Manning joined the service, he swore an oath ...

Pointing to the oath may seem overly legalistic or even a bit naïve, but its importance cannot be overstated. Had Manning not sworn that oath, and had the military not perhaps far too blindly believed that he intended to abide by it, the government would never have allowed Private Manning within a country mile of any of the sensitive information Manning dealt with for hours each day. In breaching that trust, Manning breached the same public trust that Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen did ...

http://theweek.com/article/index/238689/bob-woodward-is-no-bradley-manning