Assange is addicted to the limelight in my opinion, possibly suffering from the 'Conspiracy mentality' that seems to be becoming more common these days, but, that said, when you have seen the documents he has, there's a chance he has reason to be.
The rape charges, though, are a deliberate attempt to defame him from the looks of things, and the constant attacks on Wikileaks are actually doing more to promote these cables than reduce the impact, the inefficiency of the methods used to deal with the whole thing is quite laughable because it seems to be actually be helping to promote their existence. Most people are of the opinion, with a large percentage of these cables of 'So, tell me something I don't know....', but these rather half-arsed attempts at silencing them makes them seem more sinister than they are.
