My good friend Doug Gibson made a valid point: "If Edward Snowden is going to hopscotch around the word to locations where elections are rigged and human rights ignored, that giant sucking sound is sympathy evaporating for him."

My reply: "Doug, another way of viewing this is that Snowden is hopschotching around the world to countries NOT ruled by governments that kill people by remote control and are strong enough to prevent him from being seized and tortured by the government that does. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison sought help in their war for independence from the absolute rulers of France and (ironically) Russia, neither of which embodied the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Snowden's hegira is an indictment of the government that's pursuing him."

I would add that as David Gregory demonstrated this morning, the US media elite is composed of people who would support the criminalization of actual journalism. Roughly one month after the Washington punditocracy was livid over the treatment of the AP, many -- if not most -- are probably willing to support the prosecution of a whistleblower and the journalist who reported his disclosures. Assuming that a gap separates post-Soviet Russia from proto-Soviet Amerika, it's one that can be crossed in the kind of modest jump one performs in a hopscotch game.William N. Grigg ·