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Comment by hullo | Hacker News Reader

It takes Assange-level arrogance to believe that the only reason someone would think that Assange is arrogant is that he's been the victim of a media smear campaign.

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And you have to be some kind of mindless sheep to be distracted by his character at the expense of his work.

Well, reasonable people will have to agree to disagree about whether the concept of arrogance is relevant or not to to the wikileaks project. I'd say it's far from a distraction, and in fact it's the key problem with the whole endeavor.

You're right, we shouldn't talk about the contents of those leaks when we can bicker about whether or not someone is arrogant. We'll put 2 guys on TV, one will take the 'arrogant' side, the other will take the 'non-arrogant' side, and any fair-minded listener can conclude that they're both half-right, the dude is sort of arrogant (or whichever insult), and we'll all just forget about the contents of those cables or the fact that we're being monitored.

Brave New World was indeed scarier than 1984. But hey, why not have both?

Speaking of ad hominem attacks ...

Sure, but the point is Assange should be a side dish to the Wikileak related issues (like civilian casualties, privacy, transparency), and Assange's personality a side dish to their actions and writings/ideas (which I find interesting/fun).

"We always expect tremendous criticism. It is my role to be the lightning rod ... to attract the attacks against the organization for our work, and that is a difficult role. On the other hand, I get undue credit." Julian Assange

Can you give specific examples of these arrogant character traits?

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