Thread by @ggreenwald

Mediocre journalists with no reporting accomplishments or record of bravery always hate most those who actually bring transparency to the world's most powerful factions and enable the most important scoops.

They're a mirror held up to these journalists, showing their failures:

https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1338250374013198343

If you know deep in your soul that you've never broken any major stories, and never took any risks to challenge powerful factions, and never will, is it really hard to understand why you would hate those -- such as Snowden and Assange -- who have done exactly that?

Also: it's pretty odd to declare everyone now agrees with you about Snowden as @ACLU, @RandPaul, @TulsiGabbard, press freedom & human rights groups all over the world, Lula, Dilma, and @nytimes declare him a heroic whistleblower who deserves a pardon.

Inventing your own reality.

I’m saying this literally and advisedly:

Of the significant US political factions, by far the most authoritarian is US liberalism. They crave censorship, jingostically worship CIA & FBI, and want to see whistleblowers imprisoned for life - by pitting one against the other:

The only thing worse than believing people should rot in prison for life for the “crime” of exposing illegalities and deceit by the US security state agencies is believing there should be exemptions for those who do that only if they serve the political interests of your Party.

There is a reason — numerous ones — why establishment US liberals now find so much common cause with people like Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, David Frum and Rick Wilson.

It’s not a Trump-based alliance of convenience, but a convergence of ideology and mentality.

For those who weren’t paying attention to politics at the time the Snowden reporting happened, or who don’t recall the details but are seeing the pardon debate now, you can watch Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning documentary “CitizenFour” about it on YouTube: