Earlier this evening I finally decided to try to be a little better informed about the whole Wikileaks/Manning affair, so I watched this PBS Frontline episode from 2011 called WikiSecrets.

Maybe it’s just me, but I had an immediate and very strong visceral dislike of Assange. He came off as incredibly smug & condescending… reminded me of religious fanatics and their certainty that they’re right and anyone who disagrees is evil. The whole Wikileaks thing also seems to be a bit like a business. Weird. Sorta like televangelists, I guess.

Bradley Manning just struck me mostly as a young, angry, screwed-up misfit who wanted to get back at the unfair world (and ended up getting in way over his head).