Assange is an unscrupulous megalomaniac with a political agenda.

[bos1]

http://www.slate.com/id/2276857/

[Rageneau]

1. Or not.

[gateley]

2. You should have noted it's by Christopher Hitchins. If anyone can

spot a megalomaniac...

[Jamastiene]

14. Yup

Takes one to know one. :rofl:

[rocktivity]

3. "By Christopher Hitchens..."

:boring:
rocktivity

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. ...by Christopher Hitchens, who has agendas of his own.

[Bluerthanblue]

9. everyone has an agenda.

Julian Assange included.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. Certainly. But Hitchens is hardly someone who ought to be

huffing and puffing about somebody else's agenda. Or their megalomania.

[Bluerthanblue]

15. that may be true, but that doesn't make what he says meaningless-

I'm not so sure Julian Assange is someone who should preach about transparency either, but that doesn't make everything he has said and done worthless. Does it?

[Dawson Leery]

5. Ignore this garbage from Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens is a coward. After 9/11, he ran scared!

[Catherina]

6. Has Hitchens been drinking and looking in a mirror again? n/t

[Better Believe It]

7. Probably. He won't be missed.

[monmouth]

8. Well if anyone is familiar with unscrupulous megalomania that

would be Hitchens...

[EV_Ares]

10. So, if true, just one more in our midst of so many in this US.

[Bluerthanblue]

11. interesting that people are attacking the author, and saying

very little about the substance of the article.

I'd like to hear some intelligent discussion about why he's wrong.

please?

[texastoast]

16. What?

Don't you know this is the new DU? Kindly get with the program.
;-)

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. It's not just that he's wrong; it's that he's sitting in his little glass house

throwing anvils. First, he climbs up on his moral high horse and sniffs that *he* once had the opportunity to leak secret information, but didn't, so there. And if he had, he would have done the honorable thing and faced prosecution. And then he snorts that those who support Assange were all up in arms about what he considers an insignificant matter -- the Valerie Plame incident (here he refers to Joseph Wilson as "a monster of conceit").

I am a bit ambivalent about Assange, but not about Hitchens. I think someone once called him a "gin-soaked popinjay." I'd just call him a pompous ass.

[Myrina]

21. .. one of my college prof's knew Hitchens ...

... and referred to him as a 'boorish slob'. ' Nuff said.

[Bluerthanblue]

24. again, Assange preaches transparency yet is pretty

damn secretive, by this reasoning wouldn't that make him meaningless as well?

[Vattel]

25. He preaches government transparency

Why the fuck would anyone preach individual transparency?

[Bluerthanblue]

29. he preaches that secrecy breeds corruption and operates his

business in secrecy.

Who is he accountable to? Yet he feels that he has the right and responsibility to hold the rest of the world accountable?

[zalinda]

26. If you think about why he is secret, it makes sense

Just look at the threats now to his family and lawyers. What if he mentioned the name of his co workers, they too would be threatened. No, I think he is coming off as having a mega ego so only he is the target, and it has been planned this way.

zalinda

[Bluerthanblue]

28. he's lived much of his life thinking that people were out to get him.

His mother went into hiding with him when he was young. He hasn't had an easy life from what I've read.
But that's beside the point I was trying to make which is:
If people are saying that the article that the OP posted was worthless based solely on the fact that they feel the author is guilty of the same things he accuses Mr.Assange of, then how can they not say the same about Assange, who claims that secrecy breeds corruption yet operates in secrecy?

[Vattel]

19. I read the article and found no substance

Just Hitchens still trying to justify the Iraq war, making unsubstantiated criticisms of Assange, and huffing and puffing.

[Bluerthanblue]

31. that's fair enough.

your criticism is with the lack of substance rather than with the source.
thanks for explaining that.

:hi:

[bemildred]

20. Name calling is not much of an argument, as this "lickspittle popinjay" ought to know. nt

[Bluerthanblue]

23. plenty of name calling going on, not much substance was

exactly my point.

Mr.Assange's lawyer used "lickspittle" just recently.

I'd never heard that before.

:shrug:

[bemildred]

27. I noticed that (Mr Assange's lawyer's epithet).

The little battle between Hitchens and Galloway was a popular subject here at the time, which is why I remember it. I may have misquoted a little though.

The Assange battle is being fought very much in the media, and lots of name-calling is what you get. It's how we do politics here, so I guess I take it for granted. Instead of courts of law and political debates we have media circuses.

[ixion]

13. Your statement is illogical

there are other ways megalomaniacs could gain attention than pissing off every major world government. And the ONLY agenda would be transparency, and I don't see a thing wrong with that.

[bemildred]

18. Unlike Mr Hitchens, I suppose. nt

[Ford_Prefect]

22. Mr.Hitchens seems to have a convenient memory....

Mr.Hitchens seems to have a convenient memory, allowing him to compare a single incident alleged to be from his own past to an entire group of events and individuals whom are represented in the actions of Assange and those who work with him. Me thinks Hitchens doth protest far too much over something he does not appear to have the courage to act on (according to his own statements). Would he have said the same to Daniel Ellsberg in 1971?

I am tired of apologists like Hitchins whining about a so-called "agenda" which I humbly suggest many here share: the undoing of the cabal which generated the lies and the wars and the international banking/security-state-of-disaster we now endure. Far too many responsible and allegedly informed people seem, like Hitchins, willing to do ANYTHING but look at the simple truths about who engineered the situations we ordinary citizens are expected to accept, and pay for, and in some cases die for...and then actually do something real about making that truth the first thing that is talked about by ALL the talking heads, Senators, Congress-folk, and maybe, perhaps, a President who seems to have forgotten the meaning of almost every speech he's made.

It is way past the time for overpaid amateurs like Hitchins to sit down and stop polishing their respective egos. This is when serious people need to stand up and howl and kick like hell. Superman has retired from the field due to conflicted interests. The only ones who will change this is Us!

[BlueMTexpat]

30. Great response! nt

[katty]

32. is Chris writing his own bio?

[soryang]

33. There is so much wrong with this Hitchens essay it itsn't funny

First of all, he repeats the mischaracterization of Iranian missile capability as reported by Sanger. Gareth Porter has a interview discussing this very point on today's antiwar.com radio.

It is telling that Hitchens does this because it is rooted in his support for the Iraq invasion, which was also based on lies, pure and simple. Hence, his loathing for the Wilsons. This based upon Joe Wilson's exposure of the infamous "yellow cake" fraud episode. No concern by Hitchens for the unlawful retribution for the exposure of one of those telling lies the Bush administration promoted in its rabid propaganda, even after it was proven to be a lie. You really have to wonder if Hitchens doesn't have a direct pipeline to the neo-cons, or should I say vulcans, busily working in the war factory.

Hitchens I understand is quite ill, and his uncritical and cynical support of the Iraqi invasion, was and still is, his agenda. As part of that agenda, he has to confabulate a rationalization for his faithless authoritarianism. His legacy as a supporter of lies with respect to Iraq and now Iran, must be a bitter for one facing his mortality.

[bhikkhu]

34. ...like there's not room for one more?

What Wikileaks does is legal, btw. It is as legal for them to publish the information they have it is for the NYT to republish the information. You might note that the information has been gone over carefully to eliminate what might cause danger to individuals. "Unscrupulous" does not apply at all so far.