| The most detailed, nuanced account of Assange I've seen is this one[0] by Andrew O'Hagan (an author hired to ghostwrite Assange's autobiography who spent a year or so in and out of his orbit). And it's hard to square that account with the image of Assange as a journalist who's being persecuted for the truths he's shared. Though O'Hagan is sympathetic in many ways he doesn't sugarcoat anything, and I came away with the impression that Assange is the author of a great deal of his own woes. (Among other things, much of the account involves Assange lying pretty incessantly, even to his closest allies about petty dramas, so I now find it hard to take anything he's said at face value.) [0] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n05/andrew-o-hagan/ghost... ---- Edit to add: there's a quoted exchange in the account, which now springs to mind every time I hear about Assange. > There are few subjects on which Julian would be reluctant to take what you might call a paternalistic position, but over Snowden, whom he’s never met but has chatted with and feels largely responsible for, he expressed a kind of irritable admiration. "Just how good is he?" I asked. > "He’s number nine," he said. > "In the world? Among computer hackers? And where are you?" > "I’m number three." |
But, I think this is kind of hard to swallow at this point. I know you respond to someone else comment, and not directly to the story. But in this light i think it is not time to discuss if Assange lied at some point. The man deserves a fair trial, and some nobel prizes for the good stuff he did. Before Wikileaks we were some tin-foil hat /r/conspiracy readers. And now "deep state" a term you find in the MSM. Big progress necessary on the way to fix this mess, yet Assange's life got destroyed in the process.