That deafening silence you hear is the outcry, or lack of it, among Democrats and liberals for President Obama's commutation of Pvt. Bradley/Chelsea Manning, sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking sensitive information to WikiLeaks.  Their outage is reserved for WikiLeaks guru Julian Assange, who, with the Russians, allegedly, cost Hillary Clinton the presidency by revealing the emails of the DNC and John Podesta.

Unlike the Podesta and DNC emails, which revealed Democratic bigotry and corruption and collusion with liberal media outlets, Manning's leaks did real damage to American national security and put lives at risk.  It was bad for the Russians to influence the election by allegedly being the ones to reveal these truths, but wrong for it to be revealed how the DNC hacked their own primaries to tip the scales against Bernie Sanders.

As the New York Times reports, Bradley/Chelsea's commutation may have less to do with justice and more to do with political correctness and Manning's attempt to change his sex being a "get out of jail free" card:

The decision by Mr. Obama rescued Ms. [sic] Manning, who twice tried to kill herself [sic] last year, from an uncertain future as a transgender woman [sic] incarcerated at the men's military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. She [sic] has been jailed for nearly seven years, and her [sic] 35-year sentence was by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction.

By calling himself a woman, Manning managed to transform himself from a traitor to a victim.  As House Speaker Paul Ryan stated in reaction, Manning's commutation is an outrage committed by an outgoing administration allegedly worried about hackers and leakers while commuting the sentence of one of the worst, a move sure to incentivize others.  As The Hill reported:

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday forcefully condemned President Obama's commutation of former Army soldier Chelsea Manning's prison sentence for leaking classified information.

"Chelsea Manning's treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation's most sensitive secrets," Ryan said in a statement. "This is just outrageous."

Ryan added Obama's decision would embolden others who previously feared punishment for leaking classified materials.

"President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won't be held accountable for their crimes."

Manning was serving a 35-year-prison sentence before Obama's commutation Tuesday, the longest ever imposed for a leak conviction.

The former solider [sic] was convicted in 2013 after leaking classified information that was later publicly disclosed by WikiLeaks. Manning, who was originally slated for release in 2045, will now receive freedom on May 17, seven years after entering prison.

Is American national security less important than pandering to the LGBT community?  Let the debate begin on which restroom Bradley/Chelsea will use if he ever visits North Carolina.  Maybe if Julian Assange became just Julia, his accusers would change their tune.

This isn't the first time Bradley/Chelsea has received special treatment. Manning's alleged need for taxpayer-funded surgery to look like a woman came amid the scandal of veterans dying wile on VA waiting lists.  As Investor's business Daily editorialized in May 2014, as approving Manning's surgery was progressing through channels:

The Pentagon tries to transfer convicted national security leaker Bradley Manning to a civilian prison to treat a gender disorder while veterans suffer and die waiting in vain on phony Veterans Administration lists.

Or should we say Pvt. Chelsea Manning, the name chosen by the convicted leaker of sensitive classified documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Manning has asked for hormone therapy and to be able to live as a woman and the Pentagon is trying to help[.] ...

Meanwhile, the medical needs of veterans who have not betrayed their country but rather served it honorably fall victim to wait-list fraud in at least seven Veterans Administration facilities around the country, a very real scandal that has reached President Obama's home state of Illinois at the Hines VA Medical Center just outside his hometown of Chicago[.] ...

Germaine Clarno, a VA social worker and employee representative in Chicago, told CBS News that at the Illinois facility there were multiple secret waiting lists designed to hide the fact that veterans were not receiving timely medical care and sometimes not at all[.] ...

Her story mirrors those at other VA facilities, including the one in Phoenix, where Dr. Sam Foote revealed the scandal in which up to 40 veterans may have died. Sally Barnes-Breen told Sen. John McCain at a recent town hall meeting how her 71-year-old father-in-law, a Navy veteran, died while awaiting an appointment at the Phoenix VA. Thomas Francis Breen had bladder cancer and died Nov. 30.

Surgery to make Bradley/Chelsea Manning look like a woman, but no care for dying vets?  Such was and is the priority of liberal Democrats and the outgoing Obama administration.  Show mercy to our veterans, not to transgendered traitors.

Liberals say someone like Bradley/Chelsea Manning shouldn't be trapped in the wrong body.  But traitors should remain trapped in the right prison.   

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor's Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.