Good Question On Wikileaks | Transterrestrial Musings

From Jonah:

Is there any prominent person or editorial board (outside of the administration) on the left who made a huge stink about Valerie Plame’s outing who is remotely as horrified by the ongoing Wikileaks travesty?

The outrage is indeed selective.

What I want to know is why Wikileaks can’t get its hands on Obama’s college transcripts. Apparently, there are some secrets that the administration can keep.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Michael Ledeen actually kind of likes the leaks. Well, some of them are damaging to the terrorists. And it’s nice to see that the administration and State Department aren’t as utterly clueless in private as they are in public.

12 thoughts on “Good Question On Wikileaks”

it’s nice to see that the administration and State Department aren’t as utterly clueless in private as they are in public.

My thoughts exactly. Which shows just how much of politics is show for the public at home. Rubes, all of them.

Hell, I occasionally run into people who still believe that Plame was “outed” by “Bush” to “punish her” somehow.

Boggles the mind, really. Well, actually, it doesn’t, since that’s the sort of thing most people would remain rationally ignorant of; what’s annoying is that these are people who think that that’s Really Important and somehow never managed to read that it was Richard Armitage at the State department who “leaked” that… and that nobody actually cared and that Plame was about as much a Sekrit Agent as she was a talking moose.

Her movie is doing poorly. 4 weeks out, and it’s made about 25% of the budget.

“Her movie is doing poorly. 4 weeks out, and it’s made about 25% of the budget.”

You have to wonder how long Hollywood can afford to let ideology get in the way of commerce. I mean after a string of anti-war movies with big name casts went down the toilet, you’d think that they’d get the hint. The American movie going public just isn’t interested in such things.

Hollywood will continue to make those movies so long as they can tarnish Republicans and they can find suckers to put up the money. It’s the suckers who really lose money on these movies. The Hollywood crowd pays themselves first (quite lavishly) and only afterwards do they pay the suckers what is left over. Usually, due to the miracles of Hollywood accounting, there’s nothing left over. That’s how movies with big box office and apparent profits (box office – costs) end up as “losing money.”

Anyone else notice the difference in the level of outrage coming from the administration when Foggy Bottom is the subject of leaks instead of the DoD?

Consider that the Wikileaks, more than anything, underscores the incompetence of the Obama administration.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LK30Ak02.html

I think the Wikileaks is actually a good thing. One of things I noticed about the Wikileaks is that it seems to exonerate the Israelis and much of the “right-wing” view of the world in general. I think Jonah should be happy that the Wikileaks occurred.

Looks like the State Department warned about the outcome of the recent Iranian presidential election.

In a conversation today with Iran Watcher, a [Source removed] in Ashgabat labeled the announcement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in Friday’s presidential election a “coup d’etat,” and called Iran’s incumbent President “another Pinochet.” [Name removed] said that based on calculations from Mousavi’s campaign observers who were present at polling stations around the country and who witnessed the vote counts, Mousavi received approximately 26 million (or 61%) of the 42 million votes cast in Friday’s election, followed by Mehdi Karroubi (10-12 million). According to his sources, Ahmadinejad received “a maximum of 4-5 million votes,” with the remainder going to Mohsen Rezai. He said that more than anything else, the huge turnout of voters on Friday was a reflection of the Iranian electorate’s overwhelming “anti-Ahmadinejad” sentiments.

[…]

[Name removed] said that Iranians are puzzled by the muted reaction thus far of the U.S. and EU governments, as well as “very disappointed” by the number of Arab rulers who have sent messages to Ahmadinejad congratulating him on his “victory.” He said that the international community should acknowledge the illegitimacy of the election and demand that the Iranian authorities release and account for the results from each precinct. He said the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) was behind the “coup.” Even Supreme Leader Khamenei, he said, to whom the IRGC owes allegiance, is “not totally in control” of the IRGC. Citing the IRGC’s warnings against a “velvet revolution” in the days leading up to the election, it would appear that the IRGC has taken on “a life of its own.”

Another thing it does is kill the idea that Iran isn’t building a nuclear bomb. There were numerous officials in many countries discussing their worries about Iran’s nuclear bomb program.

I’m also reading with interest the diagnosis of the “Stuxnet” worm, something that apparently was designed to penetrate the security around the Iranian enrichment program and damage equipment and interfere with the process subtly. Apparently, the worm was among other things designed to target frequency converters made by two companies including a Iranian company that the IAEA didn’t know about!

I’m also reading of assassinations of various scientists associated with the program. These activities probably aren’t enough on their own to keep Iran from getting the bomb, but someone is playing hardball.