Page 31 - Dan Ellsberg News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> dan was headed toward, walking through the door, being a radical. but he would always go halfway. back at the rand corporation he sought me out, he said he wanted me to brief him on intelligence in vietnam. i said, okay, have a seat. >> all the vietnamese have ever wanted is self-determination. >> he had been in vietnam for a couple years, and had a much more radical view of the war than i did at that point. i talked to him quite a bit. he's a very likeable person. he has sort of given up all his rand cohorts and was hanging out with me. he was in my office every day.

Power. the power to change ourselves and history. >> i think the resonance that i feel with dan is that he is trying always to do what he thinks is the highest right under the circumstances, regardless of the consequences. i was not able to do that for when i worked in the government. i was too tied into the group i was working for. but dan does that all the time. it's an amazing life the way he has lived it over the last 30 years, since all those things occurred. >> his act had an effect on him, a profound effect on him and the rest of his life. he was never going to rest easy from that point...

address them. he does not want to be a distraction because his priority is to fix the problem and make sure our vets are getting the care they need. that was rick's judgment on behalf of his fellow veterans and i agree. >> joining me now is derrick bennett, msnbc analyst jack jacobs joining me by phone. first to you, is this the first step or right move? >> we certainly applaud the president for making an aggressive step in replacing general shinseki and applaud shinseki's five deck atds of service to this country. this is not about a single individual or one leader. it's a systemic ...

Because in such trials exculpatory evidence is not admitted. >> when people say, why don't you go home and face the music, i say, you have to understand the music is not an open court and a fair trial. >> reporter: secretary of state john kerry had earlier called snowden a coward and compared him with another famous leaker of classified document. >> you can go back to the pentagon papers, dan ellsberg and others who stood and went through the court system of america and made their case. >> reporter: snowden said he tried to go through official channels. >> i reported that there were real probl...

>> reporter: president obama finds his team scrambling to deal with the series of missteps on national security for blowing the cover of kabul to growing criticism at his attempt at a foreign policy reset at west point and mushrooming scandal at the v.a. as a white house aide refused to answer whether the president still has confidence in eric shinseki. >> the president wants to see the results of these reports and he, as you know, made clear there ought to be accountability once we establish all the facts. >> reporter: except last night a series of facts were established when one of...