Friday, December 10, 2010

Why Assange and not Woodward

Stephen Walt at Foreign Policy has a good question. Why are there no calls to prosecute, assassinate or otherwise inconvenience Bob Woodward who has had a lucrative career peddling highly sensitive leaks, while the establishment (including establishment journalists) is apoplectic about Julian Assange. The answer Walt provides is eminently reasonable. Woodward is an insider, a member of the elite, and:
Elites like the idea of being in charge, and they don't really trust "the people" in whose name they govern, even though it is the latter that pays their salaries, and fights their wars. Elites like the sense of power and status that being "on the inside" conveys: it's a turn-on to know things that other people don't, and it can be so darn inconvenient when the public gets wind of what the current "best and brightest" are actually doing.

Thursday, December 9, 2010