It is a double standard.
Bradley Manning and Wikileaks - Bad
Associated Press - Good
Bradley Manning and Wikileaks Leaked
Associated Press - Got caught about to leak
Journalists will call up The Pentagon Papers to defend the Associated Press. Bradley Manning and Wikileaks did the same thing. It will be interesting to watch the Press and Republicans justify the difference. It might be the first time the Republicans and American Press actually have something in common since the Iraq War.
Bradley Manning is awaiting his future and Julian Assange is estranged from life for life because he believed Manning had a right to reach the American people. Both believed they would be heroes, instead, their lives have been effected forever with irretrievable paths.
The Iraq War was illegal. The Iraq War was immoral. Yet, the two men responsible for making it obvious are faced with a life of estrangement and prison. The Associated Press was caught carrying out a potential threat to the security of the American people and the Press engaged in Group Think to circle the wagons.
There was nothing Manning or Assange did to endanger the national security of the USA. The AP can't say the same thing, but, they sure as hell will try and the 'Herd of American Journals' will seek to back the most convenient political theme to assist their war with Obama.
Benjamin Franklin and Bradley Manning (click here)
By Russ Castronovo
McClatchy Tribune Forum
May 13, 2013
...In the battle over public opinion, the stolen letters that Franklin transmitted to the Sons of Liberty were a decisive weapon for American patriots such as Sam Adams.
Just as Manning sought out WikiLeaks to publish information that he felt citizens had the right to know, Franklin turned to a group of American radicals to spread the secret doings of an empire.
Like Manning, Franklin was soon under investigation for what many in Britain viewed as an act of treachery. He worried that he might wind up in the infamous Newgate prison in London.
The portrait of Franklin that emerged from the show trial orchestrated by Britain’s Privy Council bears no resemblance to the image we now have of this Founding Father. Dishonorable, scheming, faithless: This is what detractors in Parliament called Franklin....
