The Wikileaks collection

[Bob's World]

This WikiLeaks business has caused me to take stock of a lot of my position on a range of issues.

George Bush has repeatedly admitted that he authorized "torture" (waterboarding) but that seems to be OK. No calls from senators, congressmen and the main stream media for his prosecution.

Then we have some creepy sort of guy who gets handed a flash drive with 250,000 items of State Department correspondence some of which is classified secret (but none top secret) and starts to "leak" them slowly on the internet and hitherto thought to be sane senators, congressmen and members of the main stream media go ballistic, calling for assassination, contract hits, drone strikes and the like. The mind boggles.

As one US journo has said "WikiLeaks brings out the worst in U.S.". I remain a fascinated observer.

Not sure what the point is here. A president is advised by his lawyers and staff that an action is a legal interrogation technique and gains his authorization to employ it in good faith reliance, vs. a man who knowingly violates the law in publishing classified information with the intent of damaging the state whose information he is releasing.

The whole "secret" vs "Top Secret" is a red herring; as it is a violation to release "Confidential" or "Official Use Only" material as well.

No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information. Your comparison of the two is ludicrous.