ABC twists Time.com quote alleged by Assange

[think]

Last edited Sun Jun 30, 2013, 06:16 PM - Edit history (3)

And the quote does not originate with Time magazine. The quote originated on The News Real Blog in 2007. (The News Real Blog is a right-wing blog operated by the David Horowitz Freedom Center FYI).

The date is very significant as George Stephanopoulos is quoting a 2010 article in Time magazine. This makes it sound like the "quote" in the 2007 email happened in 2010 and that it is directed at the Obama administration when in fact it would have been directed towards the Bush administration.

Here is the question asked by Stephanopolis:

'This Week' Transcript: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange
NEW YORK, June 30, 2013

A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday morning, June 30, 2013 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning. Welcome to "This Week." Traitor or hero? High stakes standoff with America's most wanted fugitive.

~Snip~

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring this back to Julian Assange. Back in 2010, an email that was revealed from you by Bart Gellman in "Time" magazine, said that you hoped the revelations from Wikileaks would bring about, quote, "the total annihilation of the current U.S. regime." Is that still your goal, and what did you mean by that?

ASSANGE: I did not say that and there is no such email. That is simply false.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It's quoted in "Time" magazine in December 2010.

ASSANGE: Yes. Well, I mean, "Time" magazine. But this is -- it's very interesting that you raised such a thing like that. We are in a situation where we have these extraordinary revelations that are causing great embarrassment to a new national security state that is arising in the U.S. It's not just the U.S. Similar national security states are rising in other countries, but it is trying to evade democratic will.

~snip~

Full transcript:

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-wikileaks-julian-assange/story?id=19521380

Here is the Time magazine write up in 2010 with the undocumented quote:

2010 Person of the Year Runner Up Julian Assange
By Barton GellmanWednesday, Dec. 15, 2010

~Snip~

Four years later, a great deal can be said about Assange, much of it unpleasant. He is inclined to the grandiose. Contempt for nearly every authority drives his work, and unguarded e-mails — leaked, naturally — reveal hopes that transparency will bring "total annihilation of the current U.S. regime." In London, he is fighting extradition to face allegations in Sweden that he sexually assaulted two WikiLeaks supporters.

What no one can say about the man, any longer, is that his boasts are empty. In 2010, WikiLeaks became a revolutionary force, wresting secrets into the public domain on a scale without precedent. Assange and company wrought deep disruptions in the marketplace of state power, much as tech-savvy insurgents before them had disrupted markets in music, film and publishing. The currency of information, scattered to the four corners of the globe, is roiling not only U.S. foreign relations but also the alliances and internal politics of other nations.

WikiLeaks has established itself, too, as a competitor to news media and intelligence agencies. By posting documents in their entirety, the site "disintermediates" the market, as economists say, weakening the old prerogatives of editors and analysts to filter information for their audiences. "This is not just a threat to those who would want to keep their own secrets," says a former member of the site's steering committee, who declined to be named. "WikiLeaks is a threat to those who would like to have other people's secrets too."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2036683_2037118_2037146,00.html #ixzz2XjQdcHnz

Please note that they didn't ask Mr Assange when they interviewed him just two weeks before. Assange makes no such claims in the interview:

TIME's Julian Assange Interview: Full Transcript/Audio
Wednesday, Dec. 01, 2010

This is the transcript of TIME managing editor Richard Stengel's interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange via Skype on Nov. 30, 2010.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034040,00.html#ixzz2XjSOD1FM

And here is the original "source". The NewsReal Blog. Which is a right-wing blog operated by David Horowitz.

The blog post written in 2007 claims to have an email from Wikileaks saying this about the current regime. The current regime would have been George W Bush:

E-Mails Revealed: Show Intent To Bring Down The U.S. Government And Possible Connections to George Soros
by Joseph Klein
Posted on December 1 2010 10:44 am

~Snip~

In the following example, after discussing the virtues of file-sharing over the Internet as a way to defeat copyright enforcement, the e-mail ends with its author’s belief that Wikileaks can assist with the ” total annihilation of the current US regime.

From:

WL can advance the political/governance aspects of these developments by several years which will have all sorts of positive cascades, not the least of which is total annihilation of the current US regime and any other regime that holds its authority through mendacity alone.

Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 08:56:55 +1100

To:

[This is a restricted internal development mailinglist for w-i-k-i-l-e-a-k-s-.-o-r-g.

Please do not mention that word directly in these discussions; refer instead to 'WL'. This list is housed at riseup.net, an activist collective in Seattle with an established lawyer and plenty of backbone.]

~Snip~

Then there are the tantalizing references to George Soros, whom Wikileaks apparently tried to hit up for a substantial donation to its cause.

Full post:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/12/01/wikileaks-internal-e-mails-revealed-show-intent-to-bring-down-the-u-s-government-and-possible-connections-to-george-soros/2/

[Catherina]

1. Stephanopoulos made a total ass out of himself

I cringed for him lol

here is the video:

[think]

2. It was pretty sad. At least the exchange with Thomas Drake's attorney

seemed to flow better.