Verge wrote on Dec 16^th, 2010 at 5:02pm:



There is no such a word as unsensitive?   I think you mean Insensitive.

freedom of speech it only applies if you say what the lefty hypocrites say you can say.. WOW..

all you two faced hypocrites.. screaming for justice for Julian Assange,,, what a laugh you are..

just cant take it can you?

Andrew Bolt isnt paid by the ABC.. he is paid by the taxpayer many of whom agree with him

you dont like what he says switch him off.  simple.. I do it all the time with Tony Jones and his cohorts..never bother with them.

Column - It’s tribal, this defence of Assange
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Andrew Bolt
Friday, December 10, 2010 at 07:02am


THE jailing of Julian Assange has inspired a tribal support that tells us plenty about our partisan times.

I’d have thought any adult would have some worries about the dumping of 250,000 stolen US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, the website created by the Australian-born Assange.

Some might argue - as I do - that most of these cables tell us nothing we don’t already know, from Italy’s Prime Minister being a lecher to Kevin Rudd being a bungling control freak.

Some might also argue - as I do - that most newspapers would have published these leaks themselves.

And even conservatives would like what these latest 250,000 cables expose - that the US truly is doing its pretty honest best to counter security threats from a world far more dangerous than most Leftists would like to admit.

But anyone with a skerrick of responsibility should also tremble at what this leaking will achieve.

The real danger is that while Assange claims he’s done all this damage to get more open government and offer “new ways to report the truth”, he’ll achieve the very opposite.

The US Government, from sheer self-preservation, will close up. Information will be more tightly controlled.

Fewer officials will dare to put the frank truth in writing, and fewer friends of the US will dare share a blunt confidence, for fear of exposure. We will get not more truth, but less.

So no condemnation of Assange can be unqualified. Equally, no defence can be unqualified. Yet what do we see?

Already Assange’s arrest in London has inspired that calling card of the tribal Left - the joint open letter.

This one is penned by the former International Socialist Jeff Sparrow, now an academic (of course) and lawyer Lizzie O’Shea, and the usual suspects of our celebrity Left have signed.

There’s Bob Brown, of course, and Mungo MacCallum, Peter Singer, Adam Bandt, Julian Burnside, Jeff Lawrence, Larissa Behrendt, Wendy Bacon, Greg Barns and Max Gillies.

Naturally, celebrity “human rights” lawyer Geoffrey Robertson is taking the case, and celebrity conspiracy theorist John Pilger is offering bail.

Here’s the curious thing. This open letter demands Prime Minister Julia Gillard “do everything in your power” to help the arrested Assange and defend “political communication”.

But Assange has not been arrested for spilling secrets. Instead, he’s facing extradition to Sweden to face charges of rape (which he denies).

True, the charges seem odd, lodged by feminists who accuse Assange of coercing them into sex, and in one case of not using a condom.

Pilger, among many other Assange defenders, pooh-poohs these charges, but if they are so absurd, why doesn’t this letter demand Gillard help fight a witch-hunt by feminists on an ideologically inspired crusade built on nothing more than post-sex regret?

Here’s why I say this reaction is tribal.

If the person wanted in Sweden for rape was not Assange but, say, me, do you think the Left would be attacking the women who cried “rape”?

As if. You can hear already the sermons denouncing my depravity.

And if it had been me, not Assange, who had leaked government documents, do you think the Left would demand Gillard protect my right to “political expression”?

God, no. In fact, when I published extracts from a leaked report written by Leftist hero Andrew Wilkie when he was an intelligence officer, proving he was alarmist on the risks of invading Iraq, not one Leftist supported me, even when I was questioned by police.

Wilkie, now an independent member of Parliament who’s told Gillard of his “disgust” at her condemnation of Assange, demanded then to know what the Government would do about me.

A Sydney Morning Herald columnist rang the federal police to make sure they were investigating me.

And why has not one of the celebrities defending Assange’s free speech defended my own, now threatened in a legal case I am not safe to even discuss?

No, it looks like it’s the side you’re on that counts, not the principle involved, and Assange demonstrates perfectly the hypocrisy of these partisan times.

Put simply, Julia Gillard was warned something like this could happen, and that it was only a matter of time before it did, so rather than place human life before poll-driven opportunism, she went along her merry-leftard way hoping all would be well.

Well, as can be demonstrated, her border policies are an absolute shipwreck.

Much like her leadership.

We told you Labor was a sinking ship, now here's proof.

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2010/12/15/w-australia-rescue-cp-99025....

Miss Anne Dryst wrote on Dec 16^th, 2010 at 5:50pm:


If only the real world was as black and white as yours