Suppose Rachael Maddow or Moyers or other left hero had done what Greenwald and Snowden did?

[Armstead]

Would they be tossed under the bus for embarrassing the administration? Would they be tarred and feathered and discredited?

Just wondering.

[MohRokTah]

1. Suppose pigs were able to fly?

Would everybody carry umbrellas then?

Just wondering.

[Capt. Obvious]

2. Yes

[JoePhilly]

3. You mean if they leaked lots of info unrelated to Domestic Surveillance?

Or tweeted something rather insane about 200+ kidnapped girls and efforts that might be undertaken to save them?

Which thing that one or both "did" are we talking about?

[Armstead]

5. Greenwald was under the bus long before that

[Spazito]

10. Yep, and for good reason...

remember his "Obama could rape a nun" racist commentary? I do.

[Armstead]

12. The question is not about whether they are sterling characters

[Spazito]

14. Yes, actually, it is...

That is the difference in why Ms. Maddow has earned the respect she has and why Greenwald has earned the contempt with which he is treated.

Your OP raises the comparison.

[JoePhilly]

18. Doesn't answer my question ... which specific hypothetical action ...

... are you referring to?

If Maddow or Moyers did the same THING as Greenwald and Snowden ... which SPECIFIC THING????

Lacking that, your question is meaningless.

[whatchamacallit]

4. Instantly

with the cacophony of a thousand howler monkeys.

[leftynyc]

6. Your comment is number 4

I think you need to look up the word cacophony. I'm sure you think it's an impressive word to use but it would be more impressive if you used it correctly.

[whatchamacallit]

28. My usage is fine

it's your reading comprehension that's at issue. I simply remarked that they would be tossed under the bus instantly upon dissing the president, amid the cacophonous din of angry howlers. What that has to do with the position of my post in the thread is a mystery.

[leftynyc]

29. LOL - since you're obviously

so good at reading the future, could you share the mega millions numbers with me? You used it wrong and much too early.

[whatchamacallit]

30. The OP was asking a hypothetical question about what people might do in general

not what would happen in this thread. You seem a bit confused...

[VanillaRhapsody]

7. You mean steal?

[Adrahil]

8. I don't think either would be as indiscriminate with the data releases as Greenden.

I think both would agree that the US engages in legitimate foreign intelligence gathering and wouldn't put that in the same bucket as domestic data gathering.

[Armstead]

13. Suppose they both did sincerely believe that foreign intelligence has a dark side?

and acted on that?

[Adrahil]

23. Then yeah, I'd call them out on that. NT

[pnwmom]

9. I doubt seriously that they'd have leaked information about our international spying.

Daniel Ellsburg, for example, who has supported Snowden, was much more selective about what he leaked.

[randome]

11. Those people you mention are smart. There's the difference.

They would not have stolen everything they could get their hands on then flee the country. They would not have made outrageous claims about PRISM downloading the Internet on a daily basis. They would not have strategically released stories to cause Obama maximum diplomatic trouble on his international travels.

'Embarrassing' the administration? You can't embarrass someone like Obama. He has something that neither Greenwald nor Snowden possess: confidence.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[JackRiddler]

15. These are not left heroes.

Moyers maybe.

Anyway, the answer to your question, insofar as you mean how the usual swarm of "D" party-line talking-points dispensers would respond, is an obvious yes.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. yes. were you on DU when Jon stewart criticized Obama for something

we heard a lot about how he was a hack and passed his prime and the mantle had passed to Colbert etc

[840high]

19. I remember.

[IAMWE]

17. It wouldn't matter to the "professional" thought police

That's why I avoid all discussion with that type.

Know-it-alls, of any stripe, SUCK!

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Absolutely

Party over country has infected the US. It is about loyalty to team blue or team red.

[WillyT]

21. You Mean After They Were Awarded...

Greenwald has received awards including the first Izzy Award for independent journalism, in 2009,[17] and the 2010 Online Journalism Award for Best Commentary.[18] In June 2013 Greenwald became widely known after The Guardian published the first of a series of reports detailing United States and British global surveillance programmes, based on classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden.[19][20] The series on which Greenwald worked, along with others, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.[21][22] His NSA reporting has won numerous other awards around the world, including top investigative journalism prizes from the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting,[23] the 2013 Online Journalism Awards,[24] the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting in Brazil for his articles in O Globo on NSA mass surveillance of Brazilians (becoming the first foreigner to win the award),[25] the 2013 Libertad de Expresion Internacional award from Argentinian magazine Perfil,[26] and the 2013 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald

Sure they would. The authoritarians and the professional bed-wetters wouldn't have it any other way.

[uponit7771]

22. You mean be a traitor? Yeah, still would've called them stupid. STupid is what stupid does

[bullwinkle428]

24. Does anyone recall Rachel's "Journalism is not terrorism" editorial comment?

Just to jog everyone's memory, this was her response to the situation involving Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, and Greenwald's partner David Miranda, and the seizure of Miranda's laptop by British authorities.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/52797608#52797608

I definitely recall some voices here implying she was a right-wing tool, didn't know what the fuck she was talking about, etc., in the wake of these comments.

[MisterP]

27. they acted way worse with the "don't touch my junk guy"

'cuz if you don't like the TSA and everything it does you're a terrible Dem

[UTUSN]

25. No, because it's not about "embarrassing the administration." It's about violating:

1) terms of employment.

2) procedures for lodging whistleblowing.

3) methods of "mental reservations" in taking oaths of service. Instead of exhausting the whistleblowing, then quitting the job and going in front of the media and pursuing maximum publicity THAT way.

4) basic levels of self-sacrificing idealism instead of personality-grandstanding.

5) not to mention, giving info to friendly/unfriendly countries. And absconding. And profiteering, both materially and egoistically.



Short answer: MADDOW/MOYERS would NOT have done what SNOWDEN-GREENWALD did, not THAT way.


Haha, when *I* just said, "it's NOT ABOUT..." I sound like the SNOW-WALD-ites who constantly say, "It's NOT ABOUT (them personally)."

And now: Let the lambasting proceed!1

[ProSense]

26. Well,

"Suppose Rachael Maddow or Moyers or other left hero had done what Greenwald and Snowden did?"

...this:

"Snowden ought to be embarrassed for helping to catapult it into the dialogue"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024833461

...would have been embarrassing regardless.