Thursday, March 28, 2024
 
Snowden’s Narcissism Aside, Americans Remain Divided on Him

WASHINGTON, D.C. May 29 (DPI) — Comment boards everywhere this week reflected the ongoing division among Americans on their view of Edward Snowden, who lurched back into the news in a broadcast interview Wednesday with NBC News.

Sites from NYTimes.com to WSJ.com to Washington Post.com all included conflicting commentary on Snowden, who continues to come across as a smug and self-righteous subject, and who, according to many readers, “seems to revel in his martyr complex.” Even a reviewer for the NY Times, Alessandra Stanley, agreed:

There was a tinge of superiority to his tone, telling Mr. Williams when his questions were “fair” and answering others as impersonally as possible.

Mr. Snowden spoke lucidly, without remorse or emotion, expressing himself politely and calmly, without an “um” or a “like.” He was so fluent it almost seemed acquired – like Eliza Doolittle, of whom Zoltan Karpathy said in “My Fair Lady, “Her English is too good, he said/which clearly indicates that she is foreign.”

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/what-brian-williams-should-have-asked-snowden/

But the substance of his disclosures – that the National Security Agency was spying on Americans without authorization, a violation of constitutional rights — remain much of the focus of reader comments, suggesting the debate over Snowden’s status – a hero or a traitor — won’t die down anytime soon.

Even the most recommended comments on NYTimes.com reflected the great division among readers:

Highest recommended:

Once again, Snowden shows us another complexity in his story — and it explains a lot about how a “low level analyst” had access to so much information. His actions are directly responsible for at least some kind of leash being attached to the NSA. Thank you Mr. Snowden.

Meanwhile, John Kerry continues to spin the same old tired lines: Snowden should “man up” and come home. Why? To face a petulant government that got caught red-handed at its abhorrent behavior? Come on Mr. Kerry (and others): YOU man up and admit that out-of-control NSA data collection is an unconstitutional obscenity.

302 Readers Recommendations:

Interesting claims from Edward “James Bond” Snowden, but I find them completely unbelievable. It should be kept in mind that his time spent at the NSA and CIA was characterized mainly by his lying to everyone all the time. He’s admitted that his reason for working there was to illegally steal data, so he’s clearly very skilled at lying, managed to fool everyone he was working with into thinking he was a patriotic, loyal worker.

I do believe him though that he didn’t intend to end up in Russia, the climate isn’t a fun one. But Sec. Kerry is quite right to point out he’s a fugitive from justice and we’ll capture him if we can, and his fugitive status was entirely by actions of his choosing, so Snowden’s got nobody to blame but himself.

Funny that despite acting as a sock-puppet for Putin recently, and being exiled in a police state that does far more spying on its citizens and has far less civil rights than America, he’s still trying to bolster his image as some sort of crusader for justice.

Mr. Snowden is, objectively, just narcissistic and deceitful. I hope that he manages to grab the spotlight less often as time goes on, because what he did was damaging but not too important in the long run.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/us/politics/snowden-says-he-was-a-spy-not-just-an-analyst.html

Attorney General Eric Holder told The Washington Post that granting Snowden clemency “would be going too far,” but the United States would “engage in a conversation” about a resolution if Snowden accepted responsibility for the leaks.

 

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