If I agree that Snowden is a Libertarian coward and Greenwald is a cynical porn pushing tax evader..

[last1standing]

18. Personally, I find the attacks on Snowden and Greenwald to be pointless distractions from the issues

Neither is a saint or without flaw. As I've done worse than any of the personal gossip that's been brought up to attack them, I won't judge their personal lives.

Regardless, I think that good, moderate Democrats have reasonable questions as to what is going on with out intelligence programs. Have they gotten out of control? As we keep hearing, some of this information isn't exactly new so how long has it been going on and what data are they collecting - not only from meta-searches but by trading information with other countries?

These are real issues that could have real impact on our future as a nation. While I don't think Obama would use the information to smear a political opponent (otherwise Romney would have lost by far more than he did), I don't think his staff is above using against someone they believe is an enemy (such as Snowden and Greenwald). Worse, I do believe that if someone like Huckabee or Perry were to get into the White House they would absolutely use information gathered by Britain to destroy Democratic opponents. There is no warrant necessary for these data trades so far as I've heard.

In my opinion these are real concerns we should be discussing. Whether Greenwald was a pornographer amounts to good reading but doesn't help us come closer to understanding the real issues.