Bush Backs Out of Event After Learning Assange Invited As Well

Former President George W. Bush has backed out of a planned speaking engagement Saturday at the YPO Leadership Summit in Denver after learning WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was invited to speak at the same event.

"Six months ago, President Bush accepted an invitation to speak to the YPO Global Leadership Summit in Denver on February 26, 2011," Bush spokesman David Sherzer said in a statement. "This week, upon learning that Julian Assange had recently been invited to address the same summit, President Bush decided to cancel his appearance."

Assange's website, WikeLeaks, published hundreds-of-thousands of classified Pentagon and State Department documents allegedly obtained from Private First Class Bradley Manning, an Army specialist. Manning was arrested and is being held at a military prison in Quantico, Virginia.

Many of the leaked documents have to do with the Bush administration's foreign policy, especially its management of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The former president has no desire to share a forum with a man who has willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States," Sherzer's statement continued.

Assange won't be speaking at the event in Denver either. He is currently under house arrest in England on sexual misconduct charges. A judge ordered Friday that Assange will be extradited to Sweden where the assaults allegedly happened.