Wrong answer

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigned today (i.e., was fired) as a result of critical remarks he made about the Obama administration’s rather inhumane treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of passing confidential cables to Wikileaks. This is the wrong response. Manning has not been convicted. The right answer would be to respect Manning’s human rights. It’s a sad day in a democracy when a government official is fired because he criticizes his government’s human rights violations over its own people, while the violations continue.