Categorical Aperitif

Today's Democracy Now! features a great panel discussion of the WikiLeaks Afghanistan mega-leak if you're curious. Jay Rosen's post has been getting a lot of attention; I must say that he nails the administration's response entirely too well:

2. The initial response from the White House was extremely unimpressive:

• This leak will harm national security. (As if those words still had some kind of magical power, after all the abuse they have been party to.)
• There’s nothing new here. (Then how could the release harm national security?)
• Wikileaks is irresponsible; they didn’t even try to contact us! (Hold on: you’re hunting the guy down and you’re outraged that he didn’t contact you?)
• Wikileaks is against the war in Afghanistan; they’re not an objective news source. (So does that mean the documents they published are fake?)
• “The period of time covered in these documents… is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy.” (Okay, so now we too know the basis for the President’s decision: and that’s a bad thing?)

Hope and change, baby. Hope and change.