What kind of coward is Edward Snowden?

[MADem]

118. Manning stole shit and decked his superior in his chain of command.

She did what she had to do--report his ass, after she'd cut him way too much slack previous to that.

He's not a hero--he's a putz. But Snowden isn't Manning, so it's pointless to try to conflate the two.

As for Drake (who ALSO isn't Snowden, and his circumstances, too, are entirely different), he was griping about a program that was eventually shut down as unworkable and too expensive. He also shared details of the program with media, and, despite being "charged" he wasn't convicted. His career wasn't "ruined" by that, his career was in the shits way before then. And he was a Republican, promoted by Republicans, working in an agency under Republican leadership.


When you choose to whistleblow, you have to be like Caesar's wife. It's best to do your job that way, even if you aren't planning on dropping dimes, but it's even more important if you want to play Paul Revere. That means don't mishandle classified, don't take it home, don't share it with people who don't have a need to know. These things are basic, and time and again, that's what gets people in hot water. That's what bit Drake in the ass--though not really. He was charged, and the charges, save one minor one, were dropped, though they could have been pressed and he could have really had a problem. What probably saved his ass more than anything else is that DOD Inspector General during the Bush era--and that's when he was griping--was a disgusting hotbed of criminality, venality and corruption--it was entirely out of control. There was no watching of the watchers--it was an horrific criminal enterprise in and of itself, that only started to get cleaned up when Gates got in there.

What bit Snowden is that he stole copious amounts of material, willy-nilly, and he took the job for that single, solitary purpose, so he claimed. And everything he asserts to be truth turns out to be not quite accurate.

He's not as smart as he thinks he is. And he's not as honest as some here think he is, either.