Resigning - but Right

From TPM:

"It is with regret that I have accepted the resignation of Philip J. Crowley as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

"Given the impact of my remarks, for which I take full responsibility, I have submitted my resignation as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Spokesman for the Department of State," Crowley said in the statement.

And what were those remarks? Well...

A BBC correspondent reported that Crowley told a small audience at a university in Massachusetts the treatment of jailed former intelligence analyst Bradley Manning "is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

Which is pretty unarguable, in my opinion.

The Boston Globe has more context:

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigned yesterday after his disparaging remarks about the Pentagon, made to a small seminar at MIT on the power of blogging, tweeting, and Facebook, appeared in blog postings by members of the audience.

...

According to an unofficial transcript of the seminar published by Ethan Zuckerman of Harvard’s Berkman Center, Crowley said: "I spent 26 years in the Air Force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don’t know why the DoD is doing it. Nevertheless, Manning is in the right place."

Crowley also said that Manning had damaged US interests by leaking 250,000 confidential diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, an antisecrecy website.

It's too bad he had to resign for pointing out the truth. But then again, it's what often happens when the president gets asked about your comments...

As Glenn Greenwald puts it:

it's also the case in Barack Obama's world that those who instituted a worldwide torture ad illegal eavesdropping regime are entitled to full-scale presidential immunity, while powerless individuals who blow the whistle on high-level wrongdoing and illegality are subjected to the most aggressive campaign of prosecution and persecution the country has ever seen. So protecting those who are abusing Manning, while firing Crowley for condemning the abuse, is perfectly consistent with the President's sense of justice.

And he adds:

Remember when ... Obama was saying things like this: "I don't want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone."

Yeah. I do.

Just another one of his lies.