But That Isn’t To Say That Julian Assange Doesn’t Have New Fans!
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A libertarian ratfucker begins to find a newly approving audience:
Trump cited the authority of Julian Assange, who declared that the hacking might have been undertaken by a 14-year-old. For an ordinary politician, this case might have been slightly awkward, since Trump had previously called WikiLeaks “disgraceful” and called for the organization to receive “the death penalty.” The simple about-face produced no embarrassment among his supporters. Here are Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and Ann Coulter in 2010 lacerating Assange as a virtual terrorist, and mocking the Obama administration’s pathetic weakness in failing to bring these enemies to justice…
Now Palin is apologizing for ever having doubted Assange. Coulter is citing Assange as a trustworthy source, and calling for him not to be jailed but honored…
On and on have conservatives followed in line. Newt Gingrich, who once called Assange “an enemy combatant,” now praises him as a “down to Earth, straight forward interviewee.” Right, Assange is just a regular, down-to-earth guy-next-door type, if you happen to live next to the Ecuadorian embassy, and your neighbor is a fugitive hacktivist libertarian with a history of rape allegations and a strange fondness for Vladimir Putin. He probably drives a pickup truck and enjoys NASCAR.
To paraphrase Mark Tushnet, depending on the angle you can see conservatives like this as 0% or 100% principled. It’s just a question of what the principle under discussion is.