Was WikiLeaks to Blame for the Upheaval in the Mid-East?

In a lecture on the current state of affairs in the Middle East David Sanger the NY Times Chief Washington Correspondent, made a claim, that one of the reasons for the chaos which began in Tunisia, was started because of information about the lifestyles of the leaders which was leaked on WikiLeaks, and it was the embarrassment of the entire world knowing this which led to the revolution.  Is it really possible that WikiLeaks was actually able to on a somewhat direct level cause so much change?  We will see, as time goes on what, if any, other significant events unfold in response to the information exposed by WikiLeaks.

The Freeness of Freedom of the Press

In our class discussion on Monday about New York Times v. US,  we discussed Justice Black's strict interpretation of the Constitution, meaning that when the First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" means literally no law, and the President act above that.  This idea of strict reading vs lose reading of the document is an argument which comes up often in other places.  The debate is centered around questions such as, do we read the Constitution today as it was read then?  Do we read it with the mindset of attempting to understand what the framers meant by it?  Do we read it as a document which was meant to be kept and read the same way as a when it was written or is it a living document which changes with the times?  These are questions which have been the basis for Constitutional debate for the last 200 years, and I don't really think I'm qualified to answer them for anyone else, but if I were a Supreme Court Justice and I needed to decide how I was going to read the Constitution, I would read it as it was written.  My reasoning for this is, that when there have been things in the Constitution which needed changes due to social changes, Amendments were made, and if the potential for Amendments is possible, then who am I to decide that the Constitution means something other than what it explicitly says.

Could it be that We're Taking About the Issues, Already?

In a New York Times article today the title, "On the Stump, Gingrich Puts Focus on Faith," seems to imply that probable 2012 Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, could already be discussing the issues which he plans on making a major part of his campaign.  As we discussed earlier and I discussed in an earlier post, usually this early in the race there is little or no focus on issues but rather the focus tends to be on who is running not what is being run on.  Sadly the article really focuses on how Gingrich's personal views seem to to not fit so well with his parties views and the words that come out of his mouth.  I guess we'll have to wait a while for the real issues stories to come out.