Today, the State Department’s chief spokesman learned a very hard lesson about politics. He handed in his resignation days after he called the administration’s treatment of Bradley Manning “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid”. Manning leaked several thousand classified documents to the Wikileaks group and is currently in military custody. You can hit the last link to see what drew Crowley’s ire and why the DoD has decided such treatment is not only warranted but necessary.
To borrow a phrase from President Obama, Crowley acted stupidly. He forgot, in his enthusiasm to let his left-wing flag fly in front of a friendly crowd, that his job is not to say whatever damned-fool thing pops to the top of his head but to carry the water for his boss, the President of the United States.
But that wasn’t his worst mistake. As we learned from the eight years of George Bush’s Presidency, government bureaucrats like Crowley can trash talk the administration and its decisions all they want so long as a Republican is in office. I dare say had President Bush demanded the resignations of the scores of middling bureaucrats who trashed him from behind the safety of anonymity over eight years, the MSM would be in an uproar right now. Heck, had he given Richard Armitage the axe for leaking Valerie Plame’s name to Michael Novak and remaining silent about it as baseless rumors floated by scurrilous journalists and Democratic politicians tore his administration to shreds, he would have been vilified.
Still, it will be interesting, I think, to see how the administration mollifies its base on the “torture” matter. I suspect that the task till be fairly simple. There are still plenty of sops it can throw and no one has ever accused the rabid left of being hard to buy off.
(via Cubachi and Liberty Pundits)
"Manning leaked several thousand classified documents to the Wikileaks group and is currently in military custody" I don't know of any reason to believe this except that the Government says it's true. Me, I'm an American and have the traditional American distrust of Government. You sound lie some kind of state-worshiping European.
Right, because that's exactly the impression you'd get of me from reading exactly one sentence from a blog that's been around for almost 7 years. I suggest you work harder before you form an opinion.
Well, technically Manning hasn't been convicted of those charges yet, has he? So the legalistic phrasing would be, "Manning allegedly leaked…" or "Manning is charged with leaking several thousand classified documents…"
But you're not a lawyer, you're an opinion writer, so my objection is moot.
My question for Jack, then, is: we can verify the fact that Wikileaks is in possession of lots of classified material, what's your alternative explanation for how they got it (and why Pfc Manning was accused of the offense)?
You are correct about my use of the word "allegedly". I base my opinion on the word of the person to whom Manning confided that he had taken the documents (who is friendly toward Manning and his cause).