... Let's keep it that way." With a 6 AM appointment in Pittsburgh, we had to get to sleep early, but I couldn't resist staying up to watch Julian Assange: The "60 Minutes" Interview, which is still available on CBS and Mashable. CBS also has an article about the making of the interview.

With one or two exceptions, I thought Assange presented himself well. His response for the inadvertent release of the names of Afghan sympathizers included a lame, "we don't pretend that our process is absolutely perfect." I wouldn't hire a roofer who said that. Assange also claimed to have suspended Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who claims to have left because: "In these last months, the organization has not been open any more, it lost its open-source promise ...". But that bit probably sailed over most viewers' heads.

Otherwise, though, I thought the interview was a net win for Assange. 60 Minutes presented him much more sympathetically than I was expecting. He came off as genuine, and while Steve Kroft was somewhat curmudgeonly during the interviews, he later admitted, "I don't think he's the evil genius that some have portrayed him to be." Assange deflected claims of being anti-American, defended individual privacy and carefully defined his role as that of someone that channels his activism into facilitating whistleblowers who are outraged by illegitimate use of power. Kroft later identified Assange as more of a Libertarian than Anarchist, which echoed Assange's earlier statement to Forbes:

It’s not correct to put me in any one philosophical or economic camp, because I’ve learned from many. But one is American libertarianism, market libertarianism. So as far as markets are concerned I’m a libertarian ...

But in, Julian Assange's (Boring) 60 Minutes Interview, Motherboard found Kroft's interview underwhelming:

It was touted by Steve Croft as the longest televised interview yet. But as Wikileaks’s surfeit of data may have reminded us, size doesn’t determine value. Of course, we shouldn’t be too surprised at Assange’s tight-lipped style in this 60 Minutes interview, which aired tonight: the peripatetic-maverick-turned-English-country-estate-arrestee is clearly terrified of being extradited to the United States on possible espionage charges.

That doesn’t stop him from acknowledging (again, surprise!) that he likes to “stir things up,” at least when it comes to organizations that need to be more carefully checked. When Croft asks Assange the crucial question – what checks exist on Wikileaks’ power – he offers a pathetic non-answer. “Sources” and “donors” aren’t checks on Assange’s power; they are a fuel supply that will exist as long as whistleblowers of all ideologies and motives exist. But Croft doesn’t press him on this or on much anything else. Which makes me think of one of the oft-touted justifications for Wikileaks: if the mainstream media fails to cover Assange well enough, do we need a radical new “journalistic” paradigm to take him on – a Wikileaks for Wikileaks?

The Awl also claims that 60 Minutes was soft on Assange:

The influence of 60 Minutes on American public opinion has historically been hard to overstate. ... Particularly the olds, I suspect, mostly take their word as gospel. ...

I'd expected 60 Minutes to really go after Assange because the administration wants to prosecute him so badly, but what happened instead is that he was given a massive soapbox from which to promote the core principles of WikiLeaks, one that may well bring public opinion to his side.

In the past Assange has been criticized for grandstanding, for arrogance and recklessness, but none of these qualities were in evidence last night. Perhaps he has been taken down a few pegs by the extraordinary effects of his efforts; it is not too much of a stretch to say that WikiLeaks played at least some part in unleashing the tidal wave of unrest that is at present engulfing the Middle East; you could make this case based on their Tunisian disclosures alone. Or perhaps the editors at 60 Minutes are more sympathetic than we know, or are likely to learn. In any case, Assange's performance was spectacular. Restrained, intelligent, on point every step of the way.

Whatever 60 Minutes was supposed to do, I agree that their interview probably will determine how most older Americans feel about WikiLeaks - to the extent that they think about it at all.

Kroft: There is an element of the press, most of the mainstream press, nobody wants to see you prosecuted, because it could affect the way that they do their business. But there’s also a feeling within the community that you’re not one of them, that you play a different game.

Assange: We do play a different game. And I hope we’re a new way.

Kroft: The point that they’re making I think is that you’re not — you’re — you’re a publisher, but you’re also an activist.

Assange: Wait, whoa. We’re a particular type of activist. In the U.S. context, there seems to be communist activists or something, so it’s a…

Kroft: Right. Agitator.

Assange: It’s a dirty word in the U.S.

Kroft: It’s a dirty word. And people think that what you’re trying to do is to sabotage the workings of government.

Assange: No. We’re not that type of activists. We are free press activists. It’s not about saving the whales. It’s about giving people the information they need to support whaling or not support whaling. Why? That is the raw ingredients that is needed to make a just and civil society. And without that you’re just sailing in the dark.