This is what passes for serious commentary in the US mainstream media.
Dana Milbank in the Washington Post, after smearing Julian Assange and Wikileaks – “I confess I’d like to throw a cream pie in his face myself” – doesn’t like to be told that his beloved US may not be such a fan of free speech after all:
It’s little wonder that Ellsberg himself empathizes with WikiLeaks. At a news conference at the National Press Club on Thursday – shortly before going to chain himself to the White House fence in a protest – the 79-year-old Ellsberg said Assange is a hero. Convicting Assange, he said, “would mean that the crown had returned to America . . . and that we’re really under a monarchical system of total control of information.”
Ellsberg was accompanied by an activist from Assange’s Australia, who lectured Americans on free speech. “We thought that America stood firm for the Constitution, for its First Amendment rights,” said the activist, Brett Solomon. “If something has changed, then let us know.”
That bloke was as insufferable as Assange.