I don't know about cheering, but let's be honest here. Assange let himself be used by the Russians, either knowingly or naively, and he willingly jumped into a hyper partisan US election. Just like some people want to put Hillary Clinton in prison, some are going to want to see Assange punished. Snowden released a lot of information that was very valuable to the citizens of the US, and that's great, but he also went well beyond that and there is a legitimate argument to be made that such behavior should be punished. He's also currently accepting the hospitality of the Russian gov't, which just adds another reason to be skeptical of his neutrality. Manning is kind of the same thing, he went far beyond releasing a controversial video showing misconduct, so some punishment was just. And the commutation by Obama was just.
There are lots of people in the US that believe strongly in the rule of law.
There are lots of people in the US that believe strongly in the rule of law.