ISSUES: Was Assange Smeared?

Angry Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is blaming a conspiracy smear campaign for the rape charge that was filed against him last week, then quickly dropped, by Swedish authorities. "It is clearly a smear campaign," Assange told Al-Jazeera yesterday. "The only question is, who was involved?" One of two women, however, who reported the editor to authorities, told Swedish newspaper AftonBladet that consensual sex with Assange turned abusive, though it "was not rape," quotes Gawker.

"The accusations against Assange are not staged by either the Pentagon nor anyone else," the accuser told the newspaper. "The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl are with a man with a disturbed view of women and problems accepting a 'no.'" The molestation charge remains, but Assange's lawyers plan to fight that as well in a meeting with authorities today. In related news, the Wall Street Journal points out that one area of information Wikileaks is reluctant to expose is the source of its funding. The identities of contributors, who have donated some $1 million this year, are concealed within Germany's Wau Holland Foundation.