Comedian OLIVER Interviews Snowden

Maybe he did it intentionally for reasons we don't know, butd it does seem odd that Edward Snowden picked a comic, John Oliver, to do an interview with him in Moscow.  [ see http://money.cnn.com/video/pf/2015/03/30/ahead-retire-your-way-barber-shop-quarter.cnnmoney/index.html]  

True, Oliver is well known, maybe even in Moscow, but a comic puts a certain spin on things that might not come from a regular news reporter like CNN's Anderson Cooper.  Oliver went out on the streets of New York and asked people if they knew who Edward Snowden was, or what he did to be "famous" and much to Snowden's surprise, few did.  Maybe they were mostly tourists or New Yorkers who don't read newspapers, but these kind of informal surveys scare me sometimes.  If you ask someone what they thought of the President's speech last night, they are apt to tell you, even if the President gave his last speech a month ago.  

Perhaps Snowden thought he had immortality because he chose to betray his country, in the same vein as Benedict Arnold.  Perhaps he thought history books would record the day he gave up Top Secret documents to the Chinese and Russians.  Perhaps he thought people were still interested in his story, since he still had the Guardian newspaper chunking out new documents every few weeks.  That was supposed to keep him relevant for a long time, with new sensational stories putting him on the front page like they did when he was in his first 15 minutes of fame.  

Justice is slow to come to Edward Snowden, but when a spy finds out that nobody remembers him and nobody even knows why he defected to another country, he gets lonely.  Nobody in Russia trusts a spy.  I understand that feeling having been near a defector once, and feeling the disgust come over me, and not entirely understanding how I could feel like that when the poor guy was doing everything he could to help us.  Putin doesn't even like him, and treats him with distain befitting the leader of the Intelligence Services.  Snowden knows by now, the adminstration would not think he was a humanitarian for giving up secrets that harm his country as much as these did.  He will never be able to come home, however hard his lawyers negotiate for his return.  He can sit for years more years until everyone forgets who he is and the interviewers will no longer be willing to travel to Moscow for a visit with him.  That day comes to all spies.    

I had a thought the other day that the only way he is getting out of this one is if the President grants him immunity from his crimes.  If anyone thiinks that is a good idea, hold up your hand.  

Dennis F. Poindexter books at Amazon