WikiLeaks and Distrust

Jack Shafer says he loves WikiLeaks because it "restores our distrust in the institutions that control our lives."

But does it? I've seen Shafer's piece praised by a number of online commentators who I would say were previously characterized by massive distrust of the American government. And Shafer, too, was already a government-distrusting libertarian. I, personally, was less of a distruster than Shafer or Glenn Greenwald pre-WikiLeaks but still more of a skeptic than, say, Fred Hiatt is. And after "cablegate" I'd say I'm still between Greenwald and Hiatt in my level of trust for America's elite national security institutions. And Hiatt, too, is exactly where he was. In terms of moving the needle on trust this seems to me to have been a total nothingburger. Instead of the cables changing people's level of trust, people's pre-existing level of trust seems to be an important determinant of their emotional response to WikiLeaks.