Common Dreams – by Jon Queally
Jeffrey Toobin, the CNN legal analyst who spent most of Tuesday on the air of his cable network commending the decision of the military judge who found Pfc. Bradley Manning guilty of nineteen criminal counts for leaking classified information to Wikileaks, was taken to task for his “inside the beltway” position during a primetime segment on Anderson Cooper’s 360.
In a debate with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, Toobin once again said he thought the verdict was the right one and expressed contentment that Manning was facing a long prison term.
In response, Greenwald said that Toobin’s remarks simply proved that “if you’re sufficiently rich and powerful and well-connected in Washington, the laws don’t apply to you. You don’t get punished. The only people who do are people like Bradley Manning.”
Greenwald said that Toobin’s comments represented much of the reason why so many people despise Washignton insiders and argued that establishment journalists like Bob Woodward and the top officials who leak much more highly classified material “all the time” are insulated from the kind of prosecution that Manning faced.
Watch the full exchange here: