I don't think that liberals/left in the media and elswhere, appreciate, how dangerous the campaign against Assange really is, the forces that have been released and how destructive they are.
Not least for a democratic society where equality before the law and the primacy of law is fundamental.
Assange, has been 'judged' and found wanting, found guilty, by the media; before he was actually judged by a court of law. In his case before he was even charged.
I don't believe the journalists, who are a kind of peoples' jury, have any comprehension of exactly how outrageous and dangerous this process has been.
In many totalitarian societies throughout history one has identified individuals or groups as not being unequivocally worthy of protection, as outsiders one can smear and show how disgusted one is with them, for their 'traits.' This is clearly what's happened to Assange. The language used by liberals the Guardian, for example, is remarkably similiar, virtually identical, to the language used by leading Nazi propagandists to describe 'racial inferiors', Slavs, gypies, Jews.
Yet the Guardian's journalists seem completely unaware of how disgraceful their use of Nazi tropes aimed at Assange, really are. In fact they'ed be horrified to see themselves compared to Nazis in their use of language to attack an outsider in this totalitarian fashion.