We're Not Drinking To Snowden

By Baxter

So here we liberals are, left wondering if we should defend Edward Snowden as the new Daniel Ellsberg — so that we won't be hypocrites and say that spying is okay when Barack Obama does it.

We cats actually fall into neither category — first, because we need to have explained to us exactly how some American's individual privacy has been violated. And second, because we know from experience that stuff from one Administration can bleed over into another. Which is not to give Barack a pass if he doesn't deserve one, mind you — but programs, once instituted, tend to be difficult to dislodge. Just ask the Republicans who hate Social Security.

Back to Snowden, though: Our reaction is also tempered by the fact that gosh — we really don't care for the people who are in his corner. They are so unappealing. Julian Assange, ugh. Glenn Greenwald — well, suffice to say that Billy Joel's lyric about the "angry young man" being "boring as hell" definitely applies.

We're also not impressed by Snowden's hopscotching around the world and accepting the alleged hospitality of China and Russia and heaven knows who else. First, it reminds us of the Worst Person Who's Ever Lived, scampering around the U.S. like a scared rabbit on 9/11. Second, we are reminded that when Daniel Ellsberg handed over the Pentagon Papers, he never left the country — he stayed and faced the music.

But our distaste for Snowden is based in one other inescapable fact: This is what you get when you let Republicans who hate government outsource it to private contractors. Edward Snowden — the $125,000-a-year high-school dropout with access to national security secrets — would not have existed before Reagan and the two Bushes. Because Republican Presidents before them actually believed in government, not in making big businesses rich at the public trough.

Oh, and one more thing, not nearly as important: We are sick of the twentysomething stubble. In the words of Burt Lancaster's character in Local Hero, one of our favorite films:

"MacIntyre: Get yourself a shave."