These tweets should tell the story — it's not working out. Andrei Soldatov, the expert on the FSB, floated the meme that now that Snowden — Greenwald's journalistic crown jewel — has raised the issue of Russian surveillance with Putin, why, we can all now ask Glenn about Russian surveillance – the topic he kept batting away all year because he said it would distract from Snowden's accomplishments. Regrettably, Michael Kelley accepted this fake premise:
“Now we can ask @ggreenwald about this… start the debate. This is extremely important for Russia." –@AndreiSoldatov http://t.co/EGadkn9rUJ
— Michael B. Kelley (@MichaelKelleyBI) April 17, 2014
And of course Jeremy Duns fell for it — and felt now we were going to see the beginning of the end of the "Chomsky premise" as Duns has called it — the one that proves so literally deadly now to Americans who are targeted by terrorists because of the Chomsky notion. Jeremy meant mainly here the propensity of leftists to claim they should only work on their own country — and not have a larger course of international action and solidarity. So how's that going with Glenn, now?
That could perhaps be called the Chomsky premise, which Greenwald (and it seems Snowden) subscribe to: http://t.co/5xDzXJGIvU
— Jeremy Duns (@jeremyduns) April 17, 2014
Er, not so well. Greenwald is as wedded to Chomsky as ever! He's even sharing a platform with him!
Very excited that I'll be doing one of my first events for "No Place to Hide" with Noam Chomsky, May 15, in Boston http://t.co/lBgu6jg09E
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 19, 2014
But now that Snowden — and Soldatov and Duns and Kelley — have made the world safe for bilateral surveillance conversations in perfect pitch — what's Greenwald doing? Well, he's praising Snowden for doing something that in fact was a carefully-scripted propaganda stunt. He's not, er, picking up the baton here.
Writing an op-ed criticizing Putin's response while needing asylum is as brave an act as the initial whistleblowing, & shows same integrity
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 18, 2014
Here he is re-tweeting people who think Snowden is gosh, awfully brave:
"This latest response suggests that Snowden is (once again) playing a game where he's several moves ahead" http://t.co/JPBSeRgQJS
— Stuart Millar (@stuartmillar159) April 18, 2014
He's boosting it, and not following Soldatov's cue at all:
Judge for yourself: Edward Snowden, in the Guardian, on his question to Putin and Putin's response http://t.co/h7Y4YHup5F
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 18, 2014
He's re-tweeting people who are terribly belligerent even now that even Snowden has raised the issue of Putin. Of course this idiot leaves out the fact that immigrants denounce US foreign policy and criticize Obama endlessly — think of Jameel Jaffer — and nothing happens to them. Not an analogy, you know.
Do political dissidents who win asylum in the United States also have to denounce U.S. foreign policy and publicly criticize Obama? #Snowden
— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) April 17, 2014
Far from now approaching the subject of Putin's surveillance in good faith, Glenn is merely continuing to huff and puff about the unfairness of criticizing Ed at all:
@curryman First people were criticizing him for not questioning Putin – now he does it and they're criticizing him for that?
— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) April 17, 2014
Glenn even ridicules anyone who really does take it seriously and expect now that Glenn will raise the Russian subject — he invokes an absurd situation, and imagines that if Snowden critics can't get into the Kremlin to steal documents and blow the whistle on Putin, we must be wimps.
Snowden should storm the Kremlin, take their surveillance docs & demand to be sent to the US: just like his brave patriotic critics would do
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 17, 2014
And far from moving the subject to Russia, or even some vague internationalism as Jacob Appelbaum is trying to do, he keeps harping on his critics and Snowden's — he can't stop harrying them:
Who could have ever guessed that moment Snowden did what surveillance apologists demanded+Q'd Russia, they would hate that too @dandrezner
— bmaz (@bmaz) April 17, 2014
All in all, I see this as a total bust, and total repudiation of what Soldatov imagined.
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