Last night, I posted that Frontline would be airing a documentary of Bradley Manning. It seems this fact did not go unnoticed by "The Nation's" Greg Mitchell and he weighed in with a preemptive attack on the unbalanced nature of the segment. He has some very good points:
The segment closes with a title card that simply reports that Manning is currently being held in the brig at Quantico -- without describing the conditions he is held under, or mentioning that this has been roundly denounced by human rights organizations, top newspaper editorials and even Hillary Clinton's top spokesman at the State Department (who lost his job after protesting). In fact, the top story related to Manning yesterday was that spokesman, P.J. Crowley, repeating his protest -- and Shep Smith at Fox News agreeing with him.Mitchell has more here.
Frontline says it will continue its report in May in a one-hour program which will, again, focus on Manning's personal life and how this "led" to his alleged leak; and his new outbursts, this time in the Army (all reported elsewhere)--and how the Army still gave him access to top-secret documents.
While tonight's segment focuses on his personal problems, and "aimless" life before joining the Army, it makes no mention whatsoever of his political or philosophical views (he was against the Iraq war, attended a gay rights rally while in the service, and wore a "humanist" dog tag in the Army).
