Ghostwriter Reveals the Secret Life of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange 359
An anonymous reader writes "From the Telegraph, 'He is vain, secretive, paranoid and jealous, prone to leering at young women and making frequent sexist jokes – and that's not the view of one of his many enemies, but of a friend ... A damning picture of Julian Assange ... has emerged in a detailed account by his ghostwriter. Assange behaves ... like an egotistical tyrant interested more in his own self-publicity than in changing the world. Worse still, he turns on his friends with increasing regularity ... Assange describes the Ecuadorean ambassador offering him diplomatic asylum as 'mad', 'fat' and 'ludicrous'. Even Assange's girlfriend, WikiLeaks researcher Sarah Harrison, grew increasingly frustrated at his behaviour. 'He openly chats girls up and has his hands on their a**e and goes nuts if I even talk to another guy,' she says. O'Hagan, who had hoped to find an anti-authoritarian rebel figure worthy of admiration, says he comes to regard Assange as someone who sacrificed the moral high-ground by attempting to evade trial over the rape charges.' — The Scotsman adds, 'Canongate director Jamie Byng yesterday hailed O'Hagan's account of the "impossibility of trying to ghost Assange's memoirs". He tweeted: "Andy O'Hagan's compelling, ring side account of Being (& being around) Julian Assange is smart, accurate and fair."'"
Re:If you can't win. (Score:0, Interesting)
It's Ad Hominem because the general debate has been about wikileaks, whistle-blowers, and government surveilance, yet here we are talking about a man's personal life, beliefs, and attitudes -- which while entertaining and somewhat interesting, have nothing to do with the larger debate.
Actually it would be "Ad Personam" and not "Ad Hominem", because his personal life might be debatable, but it doesn't contradict what he says.
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like much we already knew or suspected. I'm more interested in why some people keep trying to show us what an awful character Assange is, instead of focussing on what he has done. Love him and Wikileaks or hate them; the latter seems a lot more relevant.
Probably because like here, the people who support him make a ton of noise about how he is just a saint who has been vilified by a vengeful US government and those who say "Hmm... maybe he's not a good guy after all" tend to get drowned out. Bradley Manning might have an interesting take on whether his friendship with Assange was worth it in the end. And as to a certain extent he's arguably a criminal avoiding justice, it does tend to cast a negative light over everything he does. My biggest questions are things like "Why do you only seem to publish things that put the US in a bad light? Where are the secrets from places like Russia and China, where we know corruption is the norm?" Suppose he was given information about how top Chinese Communist Party officials secretly own various businesses and profit extraordinarily from them while they keep wages down for their employees and he chose not to publish it. Would those of you who defend him still do so? How do we really know that he's not selectively releasing the information he gets to suit some ulterior motive that most supporters wouldn't like?
oh noes (Score:5, Interesting)
He's self centered and likes to flirt with younger women. Oh no! Our faith in the very integrity of wikileaks must be revisited!
Meanwhile an enormous personality cult continues around an asshole who regularly destroyed the lives of people working for him (Steve Jobs).
If I were going to pick someone to have a beer with, I would pick Assange any day. I don't give a fuck if someone has personality flaws. That means he is the same as every other human alive. What I care about is their effect on the world around them. Assange has had such a net positive impact with wikileaks that no amount of aggressive flirting or being-a-dick-sometimes(tm) is going to burn it.
Re:oh noes (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention the liver transplant he got. People his age usually get pushed all the way back to the transplant list. Even then, after he got his liver, did he even bother taking his pills to at least ensure he lived a bit longer so the transplant wasn't useless? No. He did a crazy mystical diet where he died shortly afterwards.
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Then, why does Assange's "need" outweigh the needs and rights of his alleged victims and the people/government of Sweden to have the allegations against him investigated?