Not everyone agrees. TPM Reader SR offers his own perspective on the Snowden Prism and sub-prisms …
I haven’t detected the supposed excessive “snarkiness” of your coverage of Snowden others apparently have, at least, it hasn’t been any snarkier than the coverage of many other figures, including Obama. And certainly not by comparison to my comments about him.
But the thing that’s driving a lot of my snark is the pervasive left wing truthiness that has followed the man on his flight.
Another longtime TPM Reader, DG, questions the tone of my writing on Snowden …
I am a long time reader of TPM, an early joiner to TPM Prime, and a huge admirer of your work and TPM Media, which I recommend to all my friends for its excellent coverage and analysis of American politics. When I returned from a recent family vacation in Yosemite I used the Livewire to catch up on news. It’s the first site I read every day after the daily paper and my go to for short breaks in between work.
I am sure I am not the first long-time reader and fan to make note of my displeasure with TPM’s coverage of the Snowden case. I agree that to say “you have a problem with Snowden because he’s a punk” is a caricature of your position, and I think you’ve written quite eloquently about Snowden in the context of your belief in the necessity of military secrecy. Still, I get why JO thought to describe your position that way – there’s a snarkyness in the editorial tone to TPM that conveys certain disgust with the person beyond a disagreement over the efficacy of his actions and the extent to which we should or should not tolerate government secrecy. Personally, I find the mocking tone towards Snowden off-putting. And I write that as someone who is not a huge fan of the man himself – the kind of knee-jerk libertarianism he seems to represent does not appeal to me.
