Republicans are torn between wanting to criticize Edward Snowden for undermining the national security state that they love so much and did so much to create and wanting to praise him for embarrassing president Obama. But I thought the real test of what they felt about this story would come from the six people that clearly have set their eyes on the Republican nomination for 2016. How they react would be indicative of where they felt their party’s base was.
So where do they stand? To find out I Googled “Edward Snowden X” where X was the name of each candidate and the results were interesting.
Rand Paul comes the closest to taking a definite stand, kind of supporting him.
But what I found most interesting was that I turned up nothing from Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan, or Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz is also playing it safe, taking a “Let’s wait and see” approach. Even Rick Santorum has not said anything, maybe because this issue has nothing to do with abortion, homosexuality, or contraception, the topics that really engage his sex-obsessed mind.
What this silence suggests to me is that they are not sure which way the wind is blowing and don’t want to get too far ahead of the story.
Anything about the Dems? Any Dem who would come out against the NSA wiretapping would have my almost instant support. I watched the MA senate debate last night, and while Ed Markey said Snowden should be prosecuted, he wouldn’t call him a traitor. Gabriel Gomez (the Republican) gave a qualified condemnation in that “if he’s put anyone’s lives in danger” he’s a traitor.
Both parties are in a bind over this, but I would welcome anyone on the left with the courage to take a stand against the overreach.
The field of democratic candidates has not quite crystallized yet and seems to be wide open so it is hard to do a similar search.
The problem is that the Cuomos, the O’Malleys, the Warner’s, etc. are all waiting to see what Hillary is going to do. For instance, O’Malley during an interview with an Israeli newspaper last year hinted that, if Hillary ran, fund raising for anyone else would be problematic.