There is an old joke I’ve heard in many forms and configurations.  The gist of it is that a “mathematician”  ignores the simple solution to a problem but will go to elaborate lengths to “reduce it to a problem he has solved before.” So it is with journalists.  They reduce problems to ones they have solved before but with a new twist. So it has been with the Wikileaks story.  The story has been presented as an updated version of Daniel Ellsburg’s leaking of the Pentagon papers during the Vietnam war. Much of the conversation has been about charges of “treason”, the danger to  the American military (as if war wasn’t dangerous before),and the debate about the public’s right to know vs. the government’s need to conduct some of its business in secrecy. Continue Reading