27-04-2011, 10:02 AM
AMY GOODMAN: We turn right now to Dan Ellsberg. I want to turn to President Obama, who was questioned by supporters of accused U.S. Army whistleblower Bradley Manning last week at a fundraiser in San Francisco. The President's comments were recorded on a cell phone. He said that what Bradley Manning had done was different from what Dan Ellsberg had revealed a generation ago. Listen very carefully. This is a cell phone recording.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate. No, he's doing fine, he's doing fine; I mean, he's being courteous, and he's asking a question. He broke the law.
LOGAN PRICE: You can make it harder to break the law, even to tell the truth.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, what he did was he dumped
LOGAN PRICE: Isn't that just the same thing as what Daniel Ellsberg did?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: No, it wasn't the same thing. What it was, Ellsberg's material wasn't classified in the same way.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama openly declaring that Bradley Manningwho has yet to stand trialhas broken the law. According to Obama, the cases are not similar because, quote, "Ellsberg's material was not classified the same way." Dan Ellsberg is on the phone with us right now, the world-renowned whistleblower who exposed the Pentagon Papers some 40 years ago.
Dan, he says don't compare Bradley Manning with you.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, nearly everything the President has said represents a confusion about the state of the law and his own responsibilities. Everyone is focused, I think, on the fact that his commander-in-chief has virtually given a directed verdict to his subsequent jurors, who will all be his subordinates in deciding the guilt in the trial of Bradley Manning. He's told them already that their commander, on who their whole career depends, regards him as guilty and that they can disagree with that only at their peril. In career terms, it's clearly enough grounds for a dismissal of the charges, just as my trial was dismissed eventually for governmental misconduct.
But what people haven't really focused on, I think, is another problematic aspect of what he said. He not only was identifying Bradley Manning as the source of the crime, but he was assuming, without any question
AMY GOODMAN: Dan, we have four seconds.
DANIEL ELLSBERG:that a crime has been committed.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate. No, he's doing fine, he's doing fine; I mean, he's being courteous, and he's asking a question. He broke the law.
LOGAN PRICE: You can make it harder to break the law, even to tell the truth.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, what he did was he dumped
LOGAN PRICE: Isn't that just the same thing as what Daniel Ellsberg did?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: No, it wasn't the same thing. What it was, Ellsberg's material wasn't classified in the same way.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama openly declaring that Bradley Manningwho has yet to stand trialhas broken the law. According to Obama, the cases are not similar because, quote, "Ellsberg's material was not classified the same way." Dan Ellsberg is on the phone with us right now, the world-renowned whistleblower who exposed the Pentagon Papers some 40 years ago.
Dan, he says don't compare Bradley Manning with you.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, nearly everything the President has said represents a confusion about the state of the law and his own responsibilities. Everyone is focused, I think, on the fact that his commander-in-chief has virtually given a directed verdict to his subsequent jurors, who will all be his subordinates in deciding the guilt in the trial of Bradley Manning. He's told them already that their commander, on who their whole career depends, regards him as guilty and that they can disagree with that only at their peril. In career terms, it's clearly enough grounds for a dismissal of the charges, just as my trial was dismissed eventually for governmental misconduct.
But what people haven't really focused on, I think, is another problematic aspect of what he said. He not only was identifying Bradley Manning as the source of the crime, but he was assuming, without any question
AMY GOODMAN: Dan, we have four seconds.
DANIEL ELLSBERG:that a crime has been committed.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass