The last few notable years of his career had been less about "defending that natural right to whistleblowing" and more about "make sure only the right whistles get blown"

That's debatable but even if true doesn't mean he's not one of the most valuable and important journalists in history

"One of the most valuable and important journalists in history" is quite a grand description. Can you clarify what makes him so special? I worry this is something where people's opinions have escalated far beyond what the underlying facts support in a cycle of outrage and counter-outrage.

I would argue the scope of the stories Wikileaks has broken are of extreme historical importance. I would also consider how he has stuck to his principles despite years of house arrest and now international prosecution also historic in a journalistic context.

Given the same treatment now do you think Chris Cuomo, Rachael Maddow, or Don Lemmon would have done?

He was not under house arrest. He choose to enter the embassy, he chose to break bail.

Now the point about I may have done same thing given the same actors against me - does not make it house arrest.

Did he have opportunities to escape house arrest or prosecution by compromising his principles? I agree that Wikileaks has broken a lot of important stories, but many outlets break important stories - I'd push back just as hard if someone told me that A. G. Sulzberger was one of the most important journalists in history.

I'm not intimately familiar with those three particular journalists, but it's far from unheard of for American journalists to go to jail protecting their principles. And I'd point out that it's even more common for them to argue for their principles in court, which Assange is trying his hardest to avoid.

If true, it means he is just another cog in a propaganda machine, which is against the principles he claims to operate under.

I don't think the core issue of the court case is "is there such a natural right"? It is whether Assange broke laws in the process of carrying out the whistleblowing.

Or do you think that whistleblowing is so fundamental that it supersedes all normal laws?

Whistleblowing is in fact protected, by law, in many circumstances, at least in the US. That doesn't mean that you can stomp all over other laws, and plead whistleblowing. The other laws also still apply.

The problem is that the US in its international relationships never cares about any laws, normal or otherwise.

In this case they demand the extradition of Assange for supposedly having done some minor crime, but in the past the US have refused to extradite their people wanted for major crimes, like manslaughter, which were proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

For example, one of the cases that I am aware of happened some years ago at the US embassy from Bucharest, Romania.

Someone from the military personnel of the US embassy has driven a SUV while drunk and he hit a taxi cab killing the passenger. The American ran away from the accident place and in a few hours he was smuggled from the country by the embassy, so when the police came in the morning to arrest him he could no longer be found.

There was absolutely no doubt about his guilt, but nevertheless the US refused to extradite him and he was never punished for taking a human life.

There have been many such cases with US citizens in many countries, so whenever the US demands that other countries should extradite their people for supposedly breaking US laws, the US government shows extreme shamelessness, by asking others to do what the US will not do.

Unfortunately there are many servile foreign governments who accept this asymmetry in their relationship with the US.

I wasn't speaking primarily about the charges held against him, but rather the OPs assertion that people consider him as either hero or villain, or in some cases, something in the middle due to various faults they find with him.

On the subject of the charges, since you brought it up:

How can the US reasonably charge him with espionage? Has Assange ever even been to the US?

If we can charge a foreign reporter with espionage for the mere publication of something we consider secret, and force their international extradition, how would we feel about a foreign government doing the same to one of our citizens?

For instance, if Australia were to coerce the UK to arrest and extradite the publisher of the New York Times for prosecution under their laws for printing a story they didn't like for some reason.

What are you describing as "extrajudicial"? This court case?

My personal opinion: I don't think it's defensible that he's facing extradition charges to the US on the current charges he's facing. (He's not a whistleblower, and calling him a journalist seems to stretch the definition, but it's important for the health of society that his actions are permitted so that the actions of "actual" whistleblowers and journalists are clearly permitted.)

However, I think it's entirely defensible that he lost his asylum in Ecuador, because that's up to the good graces of Ecuador and they didn't owe him anything, and it's entirely defensible that he faced the threat of extradition to Sweden for a sexual assault trial because those charges were credible. (I don't know if they are true or not, but that's what a trial would be for, and they don't seem to have been so specious that a trial itself would be unjust.)

This makes it hard for me to summarize my opinion as either agreeing or disagreeing with his current treatment.