Well, I enjoyed the article, apart from the vicious attack on Waleed Ali.
Which has left me wondering at Ariel's sympathies, as to Zionism.

Very much enjoyed this article and agree with the author's promotion of Julian Assange as by far outstripping any other candidate for Australian of the Year.
Also enjoyed the exposure of the selection process for these accolades - Assange makes all others look relatively ineffectual.
Not sure about the Waleed Ali criticism either - withhold judgement on that.

No matter how much the journalists like him, Assange is still a dealer in stolen property, and that is a crime under Australian law.

This idiot has chosen to attack everybody, He is a conveyor of stolen material,
America is most betrayed by his actions, to the point of terrorism.
To say this bloke is a good candidate for AU of yr is juvenile judgment.

Perhaps 579 and DIS should get in touch with the Australian Federal Police and ask them why they deemed that Assange had broken no Australian law.
All news outlets publish leaked material - should they be charged as well? Why the ABC online Investigative Unit even has a blurb on the site saying it encourages whistleblowers and is interested in receiving any information of that ilk.

Hey Jonathan

DISHWATER DOWN THE DRAIN-HOLE?

Is David Burchell closer to the truth?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/columnists/david-burchell

"Through no achievement of his own other than a chance acquaintance with a bullied junior security analyst - Assange has become the great phenomenon of our age. He is, if you like, the Chauncey Gardiner of alt-politics, whose blatherings are mistaken for serious observation on the world, and who - in an era when genuine political seriousness is merely a sign of dull conformity - presents conspiratorial politics as a cool lifestyle-choice for the edification of cocktail-bar philosophers everywhere. Now thousands of miniature Assanges around the world have transformed the man into a culture hero, a moral saint for people who otherwise believe all conventional morality to be old-hat; this man who seems incapable of empathising with any other living being, and whose actions form an intricate circuit of self-heroising narcissism and heedless self-destruction, like a whorl of dishwater disappearing down the drain-hole."

Alice (in Wikiland)