These leaks don't necessarily reflect on us as a country. They reflect on our government, on both Democrats and Republicans. They reflect on our country only insofar as we the citizenry continue to consent to government by these people.
Our "glorious leaders" know that the information which has been leaked calls into question quite a bit of what they do and quite a bit about the lies they tell us on a regular basis. Their only defence is to work to convince us that their interests are our interests.
By definition, a government that keeps secrets is a government that is hiding things. While there are admittedly matters that a government should hide (defence plans, diplomatic dealings in progress, etc.), more often it is the case that hiding information results out of a desire not to be held accountable. A government that is not accountable to its people is "big government" in the very worst sense of that term.
I have absolutely no fondness for WikiLeaks but I believe in addressing the message rather than shooting the messenger. Our "leaders", who we know damn well have done their darndest not to represent our interests in most of everything they do, want us to shoot the messenger and ignore what they have tried to hide. Outrage aside, our enemies already have the information in question -- at this point, the only purpose of keeping this information hidden from the American people is so that we won't hold our politicians and bureaucrats accountable.
Agree 100% with your post.....and have yet to hear of a single person who has been jeopardized with this information. I hear the general argument....but never specifics.
Only an incredibly immature and naive person would believe that a democratic government should never keep secrets. This isn’t about the fact that secrets are kept. It’s about the people who are keeping them. No matter what -ism you choose, sooner or later the darker traits of human nature - greed, desire for absolute power, corruption, etc. - will surface and begin to corrupt the tenets of the -ism. Of course some -isms, like Socialisn, Marxism, etc., have their genesis in these darker traits. So what is the answer? There is no perfect answer. We are, after all, a fallen people. But voting for people who believe in and act in accordance with the teachings of a higher authority might help, although, I suspect Obama would claim that is what he is. I guess deciding which higher authority is good to follow is also a decsion we need to make.
The trouble for folks with security clearances is that even though it's been made public, it is legally still classified, and if it is accessed by people with a clearance but without Need-to-Know, or if it comes onto computer systems under the governance of the Defense Security Service, it must still be treated as a classified contamination.