There's no reason to care about Snowden's girlfriend or what he said on IM 5 years ago. It's barely relevant why he started working at the NSA. The fact that the US is having trouble arresting Snowden is a sideshow. The information Snowden has released is the same whether he is a saint or an asshole. That's the new information here. And that's what we should be focusing on. Everything else is just helping to obscure the point.

There's some important stuff that needs to be cleared up. Some people say the things Snowden has released are things we've known all along. Others are shocked by it (and mad at either the NSA or at Snowden for releasing it). I'd like to see more analysis of what's actually in the information that Snowden released.

It's annoying but expected that the character garbage is the focus of cable news. But it's really disappointing seeing sites likes Talking Points Memo focusing on this crap.