Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

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This is like saying someone wasn't washed out because of a persistent sore throat but was in fact diagnosed with chronic pharyngitis. I mean, OK. Sure.

Unfortunately, your argument is made more difficult by the original narrative of Snowden's story, which claims he "broke both legs in a training accident". Were tibial stress fractures what anyone conjured up from that description?

Both sides --- Gellman and the House committee --- spun this particular issue. Both sides should have provided more context.

Personally, I also think both Gellman and the House report are litigating the dumbest, least important aspect of the Snowden events. I don't really care what kind of person Snowden is, and I don't understand what his personality has to do with public policy. I'm surprised Gellman conceded this dimension of the debate --- especially because a lot of the facts aren't really on his side, in the persuasive sense. Surely Snowden was more sympathetic when we thought he'd been in a pair of casts after a parachute mishap. The House report succeeded in re-casting this part of the story, with some assistance by Gellman.

> This is like saying someone wasn't washed out because of a persistent sore throat but was in fact diagnosed with chronic pharyngitis. I mean, OK. Sure.

Well, granting the analogy for the sake of argument, the problem here is the House report says that Snowden lied by saying he was diagnosed with chronic pharyngitis when he really had a sore throat.

IOW, he is being called a liar for saying something that is literally and exactly factually true about his discharge, and which is exactly supported by the discharge papers.

(The analogy isn't precise, because at best the description used in the House report is less specific, and implies a much less serious injury in the common mind even if it can include the actual injury that occurred. So, the House report is even more dishonest than the analogy in the above paragraph would suggest.)

> Personally, I also think both Gellman and the House report are litigating the dumbest, least important aspect of the Snowden events. I don't really care what kind of person Snowden is

Sure, you don't, but you aren't representative of the masses of the public, and what the House report is trying to do (and do so at least as dishonestly as it is trying to paint Snowden as doing) -- and Gellman is trying to negate (and perhaps even turn back on the House report itself) -- is poisoning the well. They know that the substance of the matter regarding Snowden's action is difficult and complex, and they want to give the public a clear and easy to grasp reason to tune the whole thing out because "Snowden is dishonest".

Politically, its in a way the most important thing even if it is substantively least important, because its exactly the kind of thing which will -- and this is the whole reason that any time and ink has been spent on it -- prevent the substantive parts from getting attention.

I don't know that we really disagree about anything here. About the worst thing I have to say about Gellman here --- besides that I think it was strategically a bad idea to pick this factual hill to fight on --- is that he's removing the context behind the "broken leg" claim.

I know my original post reads like a list of complaints I have about Gellman's post, but it isn't: it's a list of all the claims Gellman makes, and a short take on each of them.

So, I think it's worth knowing that when Gellman says the House Report is lying because Snowden has a diagnosis of "bilateral tibial stress fractures", he's describing a common result of seeking medical attention for shin splints. That's all.

It's worth mentioning here that the Snowden movie --- I haven't seen it, but that's why all this stuff is coming up now --- appears to be false on this point in no uncertain terms. But then, the broader narrative point the movie is trying to make --- that Snowden was prevented from joining the Special Forces for medical reasons --- might not be. But then a narrower issue is whether he washed out of X-ray Special Forces Training (the "street directly to special forces training" program), or out of the military in general --- that is: did he wash out because he was only willing to serve if he could go straight to Special Forces, when he could have managed his repetitive stress injury, stayed engaged with the Army, and taken the conventional path into Special Forces? And on and on. The whole thing is a mess.

We are rapidly approaching a point where I am going to start reading reports on parachutists managing tibial stress fractures and I'd be happier if we didn't get all the way to that point.

This is like saying someone wasn't washed out because of a persistent sore throat but was in fact diagnosed with chronic pharyngitis.

No, it's not. It's quite a silly comparison, actually.

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