I agree with your sentiment of disappointment in the general response on HN to this. And I also have the same disappointment in the general media's response. I thought Tulsi Gabbard's defense of Assange to Tapper on CNN was spot on, and can't believe it's up to a few politicians to defend journalism on a news network instead of the news network itself.

The previous Obama administration went very hard against whistle blowers, but even they ultimately decided that prosecuting Assange for this would be a step too far.

What's happening seems to be people don't like him for various reasons (fair enough), are blind to the larger issues and chilling effects caused by this prosecution, and so with motivated reasoning decide this is not about politics and is about hacking, he's a bad hacker who tried to crack a Government password, and they're just standing up for some principal of not trying to hack Govt passwords or some such.