Manning specifically opted *not* to peddle the information for cash... as he himself allegedly explained:

Manning: "what if i were someone more malicious... i could’ve sold to russia or china, and made bank?"
Lamo: "why didn’t you?"
Manning: "because it’s public data... it belongs in the public domain... it belongs in the public domain because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge... if its out in the open… it should be a public good... rather than some slimy intel collector"

Instead of financially enriching himself (like Hanssen, Ames, Nicholsson, Pitts and Pollard), Bradley Maning (like Daniel Ellsberg before him) allegedly wished to broadly distribute the information in his possession so that those of us who still care about our responsibility as citizens of a democratic republic could have accurate, unfiltered knowledge of the crimes and misdemeanors that our elected representatives carry out in our name, with our tax dollars.

Why?  So that we could then act to change this broken world for the better:

"hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms - if not, than [sic] we're doomed - as a species - i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens - the reaction to the [Collateral Murder] video gave me immense hope; CNN's iReport was overwhelmed; Twitter exploded - people who saw, knew there was something wrong . . . Washington Post sat on the video… David Finkel acquired a copy while embedded out here. . . . - i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."

That, right there, is selflessness.  That's actual, genuine heroism.  And history will, indeed, judge Bradley and his alleged actions that way, I guarantee you.

By contrast, history will make a very different judgement of Adrian Lamo. It gives me no joy to say that, by the way.

The question to which I am responding to is why one might respect and honor what Manning allegedly did and not necessarily what was done by Hanssen, Ames, Nicholsson, Pitts and Pollard... the implication being that of a double-standard.  My answer is very simply that the latter five received money for their espionage, and that Manning neither received nor sought a payday (or any form of personal benefit, for that matter), which makes his alleged act substantively different, and would allow one to honor Manning's alleged act and not necessarily those of the others without being guilty of a double-standard.  That is the sum total of my point.

As for the belief regarding Manning's supposed *actual* motivations: when you show me the amazing mind-reading device you evidently have, I'll be inclined to give them credence.  Until then, I'll have to give Bradley's stated motive the benefit of the doubt.  I'll also have to treat his prior acts of social conscience as additionally telling.  To wit, I can't see how revenge or ego would motivate Bradley Manning to inform his superiors that US troops in Baghdad were inadvertently helping Iraqi police round up non-violent dissidents for torture.  I can, however, see how that act would be motivated by a strong social/democratic conscience... the same sort of social/democratic conscience that motivated the broad release of the State Department Cables by Manning (maybe), and which motivated the release of the Pentagon Papers by Ellsberg 40 years earlier.

Sure, maybe Ellsberg's choice to leak was secretly driven by all those same ugly motivations some uncharitably project onto Manning (certainly Nixon believed so, and he ordered Ellsgerg psychiatrist's office ransacked in order to prove it).  But as I lack access to your nifty Mind-Read-O-Matic and since Nixon found nothing juicy in Ellsberg shrink's office, I've long been forced to give Ellsberg's stated motivations the same benefit of the doubt to which I now give Manning's.  And that being the case, I'm forced to confess that if Ellsberg is a hero to me (and he is), then so too must be Manning.

In a twisted realization, pretty much every hero I have in my life has been, at one point or another, called treasonous and had his or her death called for (and often accomplished).  Adrian Lamo, enjoy your historical place alongside the Pharisees, James Earl Ray and Richard Nixon.