The video: While most of Washington condemns WikiLeaks, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has delivered a "passionate" defense of the anti-secrecy website and its founder, Julian Assange. (View clip below.) Paul said recently on the House floor that treating Assange as a spy for releasing secret U.S. diplomatic cables was like "killing the messenger for bringing bad news." The libertarian iconoclast concluded his address with nine questions, including, "Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: Lying us into war or WikiLeaks' revelations...?"
The reaction: Thank goodness someone in Washington is "standing up for transparency," says John Nichols in The Nation. We should be afraid of "state secrecy," not of knowing the truth about what our government is doing. Ron Paul raises "some excellent questions," says Andrea Reiher in Zap2It. He's not rallying a majority to Assange's defense, but he made "a powerful statement" that went "against the opinion held by his own party." Watch him speak for yourself:
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