COMM 150: Commentary in Irish Times on WikiLeaks

CONTENT ADVISORY: Please note FINAL EXAM HINT below in red type.

An opinion piece in The Irish Times headlined "A good week for US diplomats and blonde Ukrainian nurses" by American international energy and security consultant David Rothkopf makes the case that WikiLeaks' massive secret document dump actually reflects credit on American diplomacy. Partly, he says, that's because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has done a good job of damage control. But partly because the leaks aren't too damaging anyway.

As for the joke about Ukranian nurses, one of the documents noted that Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy is frequently accompanied by Galyna Kolotnytska, a blonde nurse from Ukraine who is less than half his age.

There. Now aren't you glad you know?

When Rothkopf isn't cheap-shotting Khadafy, his nurse or his apparent Botox treatments, he assesses "winners and losers." Among them:

• The United States. "... The US is as imperfect as any nation and guilty of countless missteps. But if there is one over-arching message to the Wiki-spill it is that for the most part, US diplomats and officials have been doing an admirable job."
  
• American diplomats. "Diplomacy necessarily involves secrets and deceptions, but an acid test of diplomacy and diplomats is whether what is done privately stands up to public scrutiny. The leaked cables for the most part show professional diplomats doing their job with intelligence, wisdom, candour and even humour. Bill Burns wrote incisively wherever he was stationed."
  
• The five newspapers. "Ka-ching. WikiLeaks is not only the gift that keeps on giving, it could go on giving for a long time. Release 250 or so cables a day and they could keep going for 3 years. But guess what, it’s not just good business, it’s actually good journalism. Provided they behave responsibly as, for example, the New York Times and the Guardian seem to have done, this is a coup for ink-stained wretches everywhere."
  
• Advocates for intelligence reform. "Let’s see: if a 22-year-old moon-faced army private with a blank Lady Gaga CD in his hand can download a mountain of classified documents and make them public, I wonder how many other slightly more sophisticated actors have been siphoning out more important secrets more discreetly over the past several years. The custodians of the US system of document classification and its intelligence knowledge management system have got to be more embarrassed by this fiasco than Col Gadafy’s plastic surgeon. ..."
  
• Voluptuous blonde Ukranian nurses. "Botox aside, Gadafy seems to be doing something right. Perhaps being a ruthless dictator isn’t so bad after all. ..." I'll spare you the rest of it.

Rothkopf's "losers" are mostly predictable. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. China. Pakistan. Khadafy and the other foreign leaders who are cheap-shotted in the cables. But also the U.S. Department of Defense. That was a surprise. And so was Rothkopf's reasoning:

Defence has always looked down its nose at the way the state department handled secrets. So all this is a bit, um, awkward. State’s computers simply wouldn’t allow the kind of siphoning-off of classified material that the military system seemingly invited. They’ve also taken months to step it up and fix security, though they are moving double-time now to make up for lost time.

Remember: This whole business allegedly started with a "moon-faced army private with a blank Lady Gaga CD in his hand." Doesn't say much for the U.S. Army's security measures.

Want something to think about between now and when you write the final exam? Rothkopf''s piece is entertaining, well, witty at least. But he makes some good, substantive points. And he's watchdogging -- he's evaluating the government and the media, too, so he's even watchdogging the watchdogs. Question: Can you be entertaining and give citizens the information they need in a democracy at the same time?