Edward Snowden made a calm, compelling case for clemency last night. He's a patriot.

[MADem]

240. COMCAST/XFINITY are showcasing it in their ON DEMAND menu.

I watched it again, in case I missed anything.

I noticed a few things that escaped me, before. He did a lot of "Down and Away" with the eyes. He'd look away while answering a question, then look at BW to try and gauge his reaction. He also did a bit of rapid blinking when he got questions with a bit of punch. His posture looked rehearsed--of course, that could be because they always put those guys in close proximity in chairs facing one another. He didn't look easy, but he did look like he was trying HARD to look easy.

A few of his comments were very off-putting to me. "I was AT FORT MEADE!!!!" he said (re: Nahn Wun Wun). Yeah, he was at Ft. Meade housing area, in some kid's house, playing video games. He wasn't wandering the halls of NSA. He was a teenager at the time. "I WAS A SPY!!" was another one that seemed to be an overstatement. He had a "different name?" Really? I'd love to know what it was. And being assigned as an "attache" at an embassy--which he was--is not operating "covertly." Everyone and their fucking mother, save the principal, his immediate staffers, and the administrative personnel, is an "attache." That title has TWO purposes--the first purpose is to give the worker diplomatic immunity. The second purpose is so you're listed in the roster as an "attache" and not "Hey Russians, Say, Chinese, this is the guy with ACCESS TO THE COMPUTERS--work on compromising HIM First!!!!"

The more I listened to him (and all this is just my opinion, so anyone else poking their nose in my conversation with TD, you don't like opinion? Stop reading), the more I thought he was a very well spoken, smart-in-one-area-only, full of himself, DOLT. A savant when it came to computers, a completely clueless jerk at seeing how he came across to others. I am not at ALL surprised that he almost came to blows with his supervisors in Switzerland. I'm not surprised they fired his ass. He has that smarmy/insufferable vibe. "You're stupid, let me explain this to you simply, because you're too dumb to get it," -- he tried to pull that with BW with the phone, but that little exchange didn't quite come off the way he hoped, I don't think.

And this guy wanted SES pay? I swear, that, I think, is what really drove him to swipe all that crap and run--because he felt they didn't appreciate what he regarded as his absolute genius. GS-13 money for a high school dropout with a bogus clearance wasn't "good enough" for him.

The more he talked, the dumber he came across. He sounded like a guy who had no clue how to break into the Upper Echelon club, the sort that would insult the boss instead of flatter them, and then not understand why he didn't get one of the coveted 'up and comer' invitations to his annual garden party. He wanted to be a PLAYAH, a Big Boss, not an intermediate worker bee taking direction from some steak-and-martini-lunch guy who wasn't as smart as he was when it came to the computers (but maybe had a better grasp on the workings of human nature?).

My read-out after two passes at the show was RESENTMENT, followed by REGRET. I think if he had it to do over again, he'd rewind the script and take surfing lessons to get the frustrations out. He'd never have called GG or LP or anyone. He wouldn't have stolen a thing.

But hey, too late. Helluva lesson to learn.