Supplementing my post regarding Obama’s public declaration of Brad Manning’s guilt before he has even been tried:
[I]in response to [a reporter] raising the case of Daniel Ellsberg, we have this from Obama:
No it wasn't the same thing. Ellsberg's material wasn't classified in the same way.
What Obama said there is technically true, but not the way he intended. Indeed, the truth of the matter makes exactly the opposite point as the one the President attempted to make. The 42 volumes of the Pentagon Papers leaked by Ellsberg to The New York Times were designated "TOP SECRET": the highest secrecy designation under the law. By stark contrast, not a single page of the materials allegedly leaked by Manning to Wikileaks was marked "top secret"; to the contrary, it was all marked "secret" or "classified": among the lowest level secrecy classifications[...]
In response to the controversy created by Obama’s declaration of Manning’s guilt, the White House now says that the President merely was "making a general statement that did not go specifically to the charges against Manning: 'The president was emphasizing that, in general, the unauthorized release of classified information is not a lawful act,' [a White House spokesman said] Friday night. 'He was not expressing a view as to the guilt or innocence of Pfc. Manning specifically'.
Say what? He specifically said about Manning, “He broke the law.”
Maybe they should just pull a Kyl and say it wasn’t meant to be a factual statement.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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