One insufferable twit's fight for fame

I've kept my own counsel on this Edward Snowden case. I didn’t want to judge him too quickly. My first impulse was to dismiss him as a self-aggrandizing little twit, who surely can’t really believe that the security apparatus of his own country is more pernicious than those maintained by his new friends in China, Russia, Cuba and Ecuador.

But now I have sufficient facts to render a judgment. And my judgment is this: Edward Snowden is a self-aggrandizing little twit. I hope he has a hard time ahead of him, because I think he richly deserves it.

Yeah, it’s terrible that the NSA is collecting almost as much personal data as Facebook. But what kind of a horse’s ass complains about intrusive surveillance and then accepts the generosity of Beijing? What kind of idiot whines about the erosion of privacy and then heads straight to Moscow, where full-court domestic surveillance was invented? Next stop, apparently, is Havana. Then on to Quito, where Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa Delgado isn’t exactly revered as a champion of free speech. At this rate, Snowden will soon be sipping Cristal with Kim Jong Un.

Look. Edward. You want to betray a professional oath and leak stuff you swore to keep secret, fine. But don’t anoint yourself as the giver of truth. Not when the chief beneficiaries of your actions are nations with far worse human-rights records than America. Just admit what has now become clear: It’s all about you, and a sweet book deal that will sell itself.