Live Q&As

The First Amendment is there to protect unpopular speech. (No protection is needed for speech that everyone welcomes, right?) That said, I am uncomfortable with Wikileaks' motivations. But I think the basic principle in these cases should be that it's the responsibility of the government to protect the information it needs to protect. And my question is whether we want executives of private companies making those decisions.

You are right that if you want to play in Twitter's cyberspace, you have to play by Twitter's rules. For me, it becomes worrisome when internet companies have such reach that they are effective monopolies. In those cases, they begin to look like utilities that should be subject to certain public-interest rules, and maybe one of those rules should deal with their ability to make political judgments about speech.

It will make a bad situation worse. It's not that he was making much progress, given the situation. But if Afghanistan ever got to the point where a negotiated deal of some kind became possible and could make a real difference, Holbrooke was the guy to broker that deal.

Unbind your mind. I see a bill not just extending all the tax cuts -- for middle-class and wealthy alike -- but making them all permanent. I see a shorter extension of unemployment benefits, with cuts made elsewhere in programs for the poor and/or unemployed. I see a serious attempt to eliminate the estate tax altogether. And I see Republicans claiming, meanwhile, that Democrats are the ones who made everybody's taxes go up.

I've been a journalist all my adult life, and I believe in transparency with all my heart and soul. I have to acknowledge, though, that if I were trying to conduct foreign policy for the United States, I'd want to be able to keep some diplomatic conversations confidential. As I said, the responsibility ultimately rests on the government to keep its secrets. 

Well, I think the idea that some federal officials shouldn't read the stories or risk their clearances is stupid and absurd. Once it's out there, it's out there. Come on.

Shocking. Totally uncalled-for. This is the heir to the throne, after all. Unimaginable that he would be driven straight through such a violent scene. (But the fact that they yelled "Off with their heads"? Priceless.)

I think it probably does. If it doesn't, then you'd have to conclude that the then-editor of the New York Times could have been arrested for publishing the Pentagon Papers, or that Ben Bradlee could have been jailed for The Washington Post's Watergate revelations, right? I believe there's a world of difference between Wikileaks and those two great newspapers -- wer're journalists, and I think Julian Assange is an activist. But as far as the law is concerned, I think that's just semantics. Publication is publication.

You make a good point, and in the process I think you illustrate mine. Were the companies worried about government disapproval, or even potential government action against them? I agree that this would be a problem, but we don't know whether it's the case. What if Pfc. Bradley Manning had called Julian Assange on a cell phone to discuss leaking all this material. Should Verizon cancel Manning's account?

Give me a freaking break. I'll put my patriotism up against yours every day of the week. Utilities are private companies, too, and we subject them to rules about access. You might object -- but that's not patriotism, it's some kind of Ayn Rand fantasy.

You're right that the word "permanent" has no meaning in connection with tax policy, which is always changeable. In this case, the better description would have been "longer lasting." I believe the GOP would have made the tax claim stick. Things didn't have to be this way. But the time for the Democrats to lose their "cowering mindset" -- which many of them indeed had -- was before the election. They had public opinion on their side and could have won the argument -- and a better deal. At this point, though, come on, it's not just GOP rhetoric that they have to battle, it's also the ticking of the clock. Six months ago, there was a better deal to be had. Six months from now? No way.

Maybe they should. It's true that copyrighted material has greater legal protection on the Web than government material. But can the government be an "author" in that sense? I doubt it.

I do embrace those values, but I see a real difference between the journalistic impulse and the activist impulse. I think of Assange as more of a source than a journalist -- and every reporter quickly learns that you have to know whether your source has an ax to grind. Perhaps this makes me a journalistic chauvinist; I plead guilty.

And with that confession, my time is up for today. Thanks or participating, and I hope to see you again next time.