I am having such a hard time ginning up any sympathy for Bradley Manning. It's not as if there is any question about his guilt, or the fact that his treason cost lives. I recognize that there are issues about his detention conditions (although I think that there is plenty of evidence that he has exaggerated for the Court - it's an effort to get extra credit for time served, and is a routine technique which occurred in every case I ever tried where pretrial confinement was involved), and I have my own problems with the drone program, but I think that there is a significant amount of "willingness to believe" anything that supports an anti-war position, and deliberate ignorance about the consequences of his actions. By the way, the Rosenbergs, it turns out, were actually guilty, too. So, while I agree with many positions you have taken in the past, Bradly Manning is no "innocent." Stupid, naive, egotistical, confused, yes, but not innocent. He knew what he was doing, and did it consciously, with forethought and with depraved indifference of the consequences of his actions.

A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich