And so now the smearing begins. John Boehner calls Edward Snowden a "traitor." Sen. Dianne Feinstein chimed in, agreeing that he committed treason.
Fox News analyst Ralph Peters took it a step further, saying Snowden should be executed for it.
Then there's all the snooty, Ivy League sniping that Snowden was a high school dropout and had to get a GED, as if everyone who ever has trouble in high school is an idiot and somehow disqualified from doing intelligent and worthwhile work.
The smearing hasn't stopped with Snowden. It's all over Glenn Greenwald, too.
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen calls him "vainglorious."
Andrew Sullivan, while praising Greenwald with one hand, slaps him with the other, saying, "He has little grip on what it actually means to govern a country or run a war."
Rep. Peter King actually wants Greenwald prosecuted, along with Snowden.
This is blaming the messenger squared.
Rather than focusing on how blatant and corrosive the NSA spying is, rather than asking why we, as American citizens, weren't allowed to hear about this from our own elected officials, rather than demanding changes in the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court so we actually have a Fourth Amendment, too many people are aiming their ire at Snowden and Greenwald.
That's just what Big Brother wants.
If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story Why Was This Spying Classified in the First Place?
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