I do not know who Paul Carr is (apart from the fact that he is a Briton who lives in the US and agrees with the call by the New York Times for ‘clemency’ for Snowden, whatever that might mean) but his piece on Edward Snowden is dripping with the condescension that we have come to expect from some of the media who seem to be obsessed with finding personality flaws in him, while grudgingly acknowledging the importance of the information he released.
Here are the descriptions of Snowden that Carr packs into a short piece.
Insufferably self-important … smugger-than-a-Guy-Fawkes-mask personality … rebarbative hypocrisy of the man … Smug Eddy … an ass, a hypocrite, or even a scoundrel… his arrogance and his muddled, me-me-millennial politics … blowhard.
He even compares him in unlikability to people like Jack Abramoff, Scooter Libby, Bernie Madoff, Paris Hilton (!), and Bruno Mars (who?).
Oddly, people like Carr also focus their attention of what Snowden is not doing, such as criticizing Russia’s human rights record or corporate spying, as if he is now obliged to comment on everything under the sun that is even tangentially related to what he did. Snowden has made it clear that he wanted to expose the unconstitutional behavior by the US government. That is what he knows about and was the basis of the important information that he released that no one else did.
Sure, he could comment on other things but then he would be just another media commentator. His statements about the NSA are significant because they are based on hard facts and, most importantly, documents to which he had access. He has no more knowledge of Russia’s human rights record than the rest of us.
I’d love for one of these guys to actually show instances of Snowden’s behavior that supported these descriptions.
It’s just blatant ageism. Old cogers hate it when young people actually do things and have opinions.
This is exactly right. I saw Bill Richardson on Meet the Press discussing Snowden in the most sneering terms about what right “a twenty something contractor” to inject himself into national security matters. As a twentysomething contractor, I thought to myself, “fuck you Bill Richardson”. When you assail someone for their age and something as wide as being a contractor, you’re turning a significant chunk of people against you.
The obsession with personalities in the media makes me so frustrated. I reminds me of how we treat famous film and music stars, we want to hear about their lives, and their character flaws. The actual news that matters isn’t important, it is the drama, the people, that gets focused on.
I mean think about it, what do these guys say about the millenial generation? They say that we’re self-obsessed, narcissitic, think-they-know-everything, entitled, blah blah blah. These are the exact complaints they are wielding against Snowden. Not a coincidence.
They are furious that Snowden managed to change the world before he turned 30, more than they’ll ever accomplish within their own lifetimes.
Paul Carr, the “old coger” in question is 34.
Chip on your shoulder there youngster?
Bruno Mars (né Peter Gene Hernandez) is a singer-songwriter and record producer. I have no idea why Carr thinks Mars is a bad person.
How could you tell? XD
If Snowden did start speaking out on all manner of issues, you can bet the reaction would be, “Look at the know-all. Just because he gained some attention with the NSA stuff, he now thinks he is an authority on everything.”!
just what every older generation has said of the younger since at least the times of the ancient greeks. The race has been going to hell in a handcart for a very long time. So think just how bad you millenials must be as the culmination of all that cumulative generational worsening. Awful -- just awful.
You know the old saw about lawyers: “When the law is on you side, pound the law. When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither facts nor law are on your side, pound the table”? Well, media commentators evidently have a similar approach to Designated Official Enemies… If their facts are wrong, expose them. If you can’t get them on facts, dig up some dirt to discredit them with. If you can’t dig up any dirt, just throw out a bunch of random, baseless slurs on their character and see what sticks.
They can’t deny the importance of the information he’s released, and they evidently can’t find any dirt on him, or we’d have heard all about it by now… But the Ritual Denunciation is still required, so they have to go with the only option they have left.