Ghostwriter Reveals the Secret Life of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

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."'"

Comments

So?

[JaredOfEuropa]

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.

Re:So?

[AmiMoJo]

You shouldn't suspect anything. The fact is we have no idea what he is really like, except that it almost certainly isn't what the media have portrayed.

The fact that Slashdot posts this shit is a sad sign of the slow decline. You wouldn't get this over at SoylentNews.

Re:So?

[poetmatt]

Additionally, the man is effectively in captivity under a lot of stress. That can present a very different person than that individual might be if not for being locked in the fucking embassy, for example.

Re:So?

[dugancent]

We should be more interested in WikiLeaks and their info/message, not the blonde guy at the top.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we either have to love both Assange and Wikileaks, or hate both Assange and Wikileaks?

You can love Wikileaks and hate Assange, or love Assange and hate Wikileaks. To even bring in finer shades of grey, you can believe that Assange is probably not that nice of a person, and the Swedish investigation is legitimate, but still appreciate the effort put towards Wikileaks, and you can appreciate some of what Wikileaks has done but dislike other acts of Wikileaks.

Re:So?

[ultranova]

The fact that Slashdot posts this shit is a sad sign of the slow decline.

I disagree. While the description of Assange is obviously untrustworthy, and most likely an attempt at character assasination, it's quite newsworthy that such attempts continue. It paints a frightening picture of not Assange, but the state of our Western democracies.

Also, Slashdot's discussion system means everyone gets to see both the reactions such a story generates, and even more importantly the moderations they receive. It is quite relevant to all of us and the future of our civilization if such sustained effort to destroy the credibility of resistance actually produces results.

None of us knows anything about Assange from credible sources, so everyone is free to believe what they will. Thus what they choose to believe reflects their pre-existing bias, not unlike in the Zimmerman-Martin affair (where people apparently used their crystal balls to come up with ludicrously detailed blow-by-blow descriptions of what obviously must have happened). It matters little if Assange is a scoundrel, a Cape, or a mere human; but it matters a lot whether people are willing to simply take the government's word of it.

Re:So?

[HeckRuler]

There were Afghanis who worked secretly with the US had their names revealed

Were there now?

You'd think the Pentagon would have known about them:

On 11 August 2010, a spokesman for the Pentagon told the Washington Post that "We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents",[55] although the spokesman asserted "there is in all likelihood a lag between exposure of these documents and jeopardy in the field." On 17 August, the Associated Press reported that "so far there is no evidence that any Afghans named in the leaked documents as defectors or informants from the Taliban insurgency have been harmed in retaliation."[56]

In October, the Pentagon concluded that the leak "did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods", and that furthermore "there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak."[57] Both Wikileaks and Greenwald pointed to this report as clear evidence that the danger caused by the leak had been vastly overstated.[58][59]

If you can't win.

[TechyImmigrant]

If you can't win: Ad Hominem.

Not a ghostwriter.

[o_ferguson]

Speaking as a ghostwriter, this is not how one operates. This guy is just being an asshole.

vain, paranoid, sexist

[tomhath]

Could describe any number of people who are/were successful in public but had feet of clay. Rev. Martin Luther King, Pres. Bill Clinton - the list goes on and on (admittedly King wasn't necessarily paranoid, they really were out to get him).

Re:shocking

[TheGratefulNet]

can I have 'smear campaign' for 100, please, alex?

we can see thru this character assasination easily enough; but the fact is, if you keep repeating lies enough, people will believe them.

regardless, what the man has done is what matters. personality does not enter into it, not one bit.

oh noes

[melchoir55]

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

[cheesybagel]

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.

Not actual ghostwriter

[goombah99]

more like self appoint, failed and bitter biographer.
"[When Assange would not cooperare with the writier]... Assange's publisher, Cannongate, releases its own version of the autobiography, after Assange allegedly fails to honour the terms of his contract. The book flopped, selling only 700 copies in its first week"

NSA Campaign

[StormReaver]

Remember, the NSA's stated M.O. is to publicly smear Julian Assange in order to get people to divert focus away from the crimes commited by the U.S. Federal Government.

Julian's character is an irrelevant distraction, so don't get drawn into a debate over the messenger. Stay on message: The U.S. Federal Government has committed crimes against its people, and will do anything to cover it up.