I can support what Julian Assange was trying to do, while not liking Julian Assange himself particularly. Actually, I find it unfortunate that what I view as sich a good idea, is attached to such an apparently dodgy individual.

Some would argue that the smear campaign has worked on you in exactly the way it was intended.

So then the question is, how can we tell what is a smear campaign, and what isn't?

Personally, I don't care overly much, as I care more about wikileaks than about Assange. However, I realise that many people will not be able to separate the two.

This story ( http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/03/01/assange-goes-off-dee... ) - I read the original print copy, is what convinced me Assange at least seems to be becoming unstable (perhaps understandable), as I generally trust Private Eye (which is a British political magazine).

He comes off rather poorly in Bill Keller's account of Wikileaks' dealings with the NYTimes as well.

Can I moot that argument by being on the record as finding him disagreeable long before the rape accusation?

I think wikileaks is interesting and powerful, but Julian Assange strikes me as a creep. At best he distracts from the cause he champions and at worst he really harms it. And I'm not talking about the rape accusation.

Assange is the one who inserted his own narcissism into the question. Believe it or not, some people actually do commit rape. There's no epidemic of false accusations--hell, even true accusations bear an enormous emotional cost for the victim.