So, CNN "journalist" Atika Rupert tried to turn the document release into a smear of Assange.

[EFerrari]

If you haven't already, go see the YouTube video of this "interview" and leave a comment.

For people who can't stream, instead of asking him about the WikiLeak release, she asked him only about himself, about a rumor she got from an ex employee and about the investigation in Sweden. Julian warns her and finally, ends the interview.

Good for him. There he is, trying to get information out and instead of covering the story, Rupert goes right for the rumors and smears.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyPIc8ZmZbM

And, here is CNN's feedback form:

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?47

[RainDog]

1. U.S. teevee "news" is worthless

I don't bother to watch any of them anymore. I learned, during the Bush years, that they are no better than Pravda was back in the day.

[Chan790]

2. Sorry, "Sweden" is part of his story.

He can't hide from it and no journalist who wants to be taken seriously as a journalist is going to avoid it or soft-foot about it. You see an attack on Assange, I see a journalist doing their job...and behavior and body-language from Assange that furthers my suspicion that he's guilty of the allegations.

He doesn't get to set the agenda anymore than any other newsmaker walking into an interview...gotcha is the name of the game. It's not about what he wants to talk about, it's about the news. After all the griping here about the media failing to do its' job, nobody has the right to complain about a member of the media doing their job.

:applause: for Ms. Rupert...it's good to know investigative journalism and aggressively pursuing the actual news story isn't dead.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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[ProudDad]

29. He was NOT accused of "sexual assault"

The Swedish prosecutor decided NOT to pursue an allegation of something they call "molestation" but that in reality was "hitting on someone who didn't want to be hit on in a bar."

So even in your attempt to smear him you are seriously inaccurate...

So whose head is up whose ass, eh?

If you persist in saying that a minor allegation of bad conduct in a bar (DUH!) (if true) is more important than further documented proof that the Empire murdered thousands of Iraqi civilians for OIL, then I'd say it's your cabeza firmly pressed into your own fundament...

[Name removed]

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[wildbilln864]

38. Very well said ProudDad!

And thank you for saying it! :hi:

[EFerrari]

5. Baloney.

[Chan790]

12. Then you and mike_c and mix...

have no right to ever ask or expect anybody to ambush-question any member of the Bush administration about the war in Iraq or 9/11 or any other subject but the ones they want to talk about.

I'm not going to play that game...unlike Assange I actually believe in revelation of the truth. Assange should answer the questions, same as evil Dick and the boy-king. Or he should concede he's got an agenda too. If lying and obfuscation are wrong (and I think they are), then they're wrong for everybody.

Assange doesn't get a pass because he's some sort of "hero".

[EFerrari]

13. Thanks for kicking my thread.

:hi:

[Chan790]

14. No problem on that...

I'd say on logic points, I'm owning you though.

Nobody yet has even attempted to justify the double-standards intrinsic in defending Assange over actual liberal ideals (like defending the rights of women against unwanted sexual advances and acts...which is what he is accused of, lest you forget) or even the very ideals (transparency of motives and relentless pursuit of the truth) Julian Assange advocates.

[EFerrari]

15. See above. n/t

[Chan790]

16. Don't care.

Still winning. Continued inability to rebut me makes you look like you can't. I'll gladly keep kicking that.

:D

:hi: :hi: :hi:

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

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[Chan790]

32. I'm going to continue to take pride in this.

The way I see it, attacking me does nothing and is the last recourse of a lost position.

You, like all other comers, fail to rebut because I'm right: Assange's just a guy who dodges questions, obfuscates his own motives and has skeletons to hide. Any journalist is right to ask questions in pursuit of a story that might not fall within the desired framework of the interviewee. He's free to not answer them, but it's illegitimate to attack a journalist for asking the questions.

You weren't worth taking off ignore to read, Jim. Barely worth the effort to riposte. Come back when you're something more than amateur...this isn't the kiddie table.

[librechik]

37. accusation is not fact--until proven, it may be slander, and in this case

is an obvious gambit to discredit Wikileaks through a personal attack on Assange. That is unfair, and by accepting this, you are assisting the Right in their agenda to silence the left.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[mix]

8. laughable post nt

[WhiteTara]

22. -10

for having your head up your ass. Gotcha isn't journalism and the world needs real discussion, not smear talk.

[Subdivisions]

24. She's a goddamned fucking hack! Is that clear enough for you? She

is WORTHLESS as a journalist! She should find another career. She is typical of the media in this country.

And we used to criticize Pravda and Soviet propaganda...pffft!

[RainDog]

25. Yes, this is something that should be investigated

The initial charge of rape was made on Aug. 20th. This information was leaked to the press THE SAME DAY that the charge was made. The prosecutor's office has no idea who called the press or why charges that were filed around 5pm on a Friday resulted in an immediate notification to the press from someone who was privy to the accusations. However, Assange's attorney said that the U.S. had already contacted Sweden and said that it could not be a safe haven for the Wikileaks owner before the charges were ever made.

Such charges of sexual molestation or rape are subject to total secrecy on the part of the prosecutors b/c of the nature of such cases. This is for the protection of the alleged victims of assault and for those who have been accused - accused does not mean convicted. Chief prosecutor Eva Finné was put in charge of the case and she dropped the rape charges on Saturday. The charges did not even stand for 24 hours. (The charges were made at 5pm and the charges were dismissed by the prosecutor's office before 5 pm the next day.)

Finné decided to look into charges of sexual harrassment, not rape, based upon the charges made by one female. A second woman, at the same time (with the same lawyer) also made charges of molestation (which applies to charges made by adult females in Sweden.)

Lawyer Claes Borgström, the attorney for the two women, demanded an appeal of the prosecutor's decision.

Because of this action by the lawyer representing the women, a new Chief prosecutor, Marianne Ny, ordered that the preliminary investigation of rape should go forward, along with a new charge of "sexual coercion and molestation" rather than sexual harassment, for the other female.

The ENTIRE CASE was leaked to the media. The entire case file. The Swedish Chancellor of Justice and the Swedish police dept of internal affairs are investigating to find out who violated Swedish law by leaking the case to the media.

The police resumed the case without ever calling Assange in for questioning. They made the charges and did not call him in for questioning for two weeks.

The Guardian UK had this information:

”Both women reported that they had been involved in consensual sexual relationships with Assange, but each reported a separate non-consensual incident of a similar character in which Assange allegedly had sex with them without using a condom.”

Ms A (one of the two women) spoke at the weekend to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and said she was not frightened of Assange and that he was not violent. She said she had only ever alleged sexual molestation, not rape, and added: "In both cases, what started out as voluntary sex subsequently developed into an assault. The other woman wanted to report rape. I gave my story as testimony to her story and to support her. We stand by the information."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/24/assange-wikileaks-swedish-prosecutors-charges

I am not defending Assange in this situation if the women chose to stop having voluntary sex after they had begun to have sex - but I do think the information that's available at this time is important to note. The charge of rape stems from acts of consensual sex that then became a situation or situations in which the females did not want to continue to have sex. From the statements they have made, they chose not to have sex when they found that Assange did not have a condom. Obviously he would not be right to continue in the sexual act if they asked him to stop.

The charges were made approximately one month after the initial Wikileaks information sharing with major news organizations in America, the UK and Germany, just to note for a timeline of events.

In any case, this charge against him has nothing whatsoever to do with the validity of his documents or the issues surrounding them. To pretend that this issue is in any way relevant to the leaks is to engage in Fox News or Republican Party sorts of tactics they used during Clinton's term in office.

[ProudDad]

28. The "Acual news story"

is the murderous Empire...

This bullshit trumped up about Mr. Assange is a smoke screen to keep ignorant folk like you distracted from the real story they don't want you to contemplate...

"Sweden" is irrelevant...

"Gotcha" is the tool of the Empire - rarely turned upon the privileged...the real 'masters of the universe'... You know, the ones you're flacking for in this absurd post...

[scarletwoman]

3. Corporate media has its orders: destroy the messenger, bury the message. nt

[EFerrari]

7. That's right. Let's see how well we do. n/t

[stevedeshazer]

6. +1

[donco6]

9. This is why we end up being so ignorant about anything going on in the world.

We fall for this crap.

Here in Denver, the Post's slant on the Wikileaks info was to point out how much Iran has been involved in stirring up trouble in Iraq, thereby setting up some prelude to war with Iran. Pretty disgusting.

[EFerrari]

10. It is. Hissyspit put up a thread last night with a list of stories

that are important in this release, btw:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9370331

[Poll_Blind]

17. They tried the SAME smear on Daniel Ellsberg almost 40 years ago with...

...the break-in to his psychiatrist's office in order to try to discredit his mental stability.

Same. Tactics. Different. Decade.

Your tax dollars at work!

PB

[EFerrari]

18. Yes! LOL, they only have two or three tricks, don't they?

:)

[Subdivisions]

19. That should be Atika Shubert and, yes, she's a hack! Hey Ms. Shubert,

what sort of journalism are you practicing over there at CNN.

[EFerrari]

20. Oops! You're right, I misspelled her name.

[stray cat]

21. Poor assange.....

[EFerrari]

23. UN already picking up on the material:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9375665

[flyarm]

26. K&R..what a hack..Thank goodness Julian had the right of mind to get up and walk out! eom

[flyarm]

27. I see the unrec crew is hard at work trying to bury this..

never in my wildest dreams would I have ever believed it would be dems working so hard to censor truth!

[EFerrari]

36. Maybe it's the Typo Police. And they'd be right!

lol

[xchrom]

34. recommend

[wildbilln864]

39. and a k&r! nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

40. Well, Assange's sex life is far more important a story than the needless death of 120,000 Iraqis.

If she was reporting on the news of Nov. 2, 1963, she ask Jackie why she was wearing that tacky hat.

[EFerrari]

41. Oh, geeze. No kidding.

:(