Tavis Smiley is known for making extreme statements that make even his fellow liberals cringe in fear. Whether he is comparing the Tea Party to Jihad or saying Republicans only oppose ObamaCare because they hate the president, the PBS host never stops making inflammatory comments.
Appearing on This Week w/ George Stephanopoulos on January 19, Smiley asserted that, “I think very quickly that in the long run, Edward Snowden, we were joking earlier, Edward Snowden might be on a postage stamp somewhere down the road. How history is going to regard what Mr. Obama has done in this moment is an open question.” [See video after jump.]
Maybe Smiley thinks that Russia will put Snowden’s face on a stamp, because it most certainly won’t be the United States.
The PBS host continued with his incendiary remarks and doubled down in his support for Snowden, “Edward Snowden is going to be acknowledged one day. He’s going to be appreciated one day.” For his part, fellow liberal James Carville laughed at the absurdity of Smiley’s assertion, and said that the only place Americans will see Snowden at a post office is on a wanted poster.
It’s nice to know that our tax dollars are going towards a network and a man who thinks a traitor to our country should be lauded as an American hero and put on a postage stamp.
See relevant transcript below.
ABC
This Week With George Stephanopoulos
January 19, 2014
10:28 a.m. Eastern
TAVIS SMILEY: I think very quickly that in the long run, Edward Snowden, we were joking earlier, Edward Snowden might be on a postage stamp somewhere down the road. Edward Snowden is going to be acknowledged one day. He’s going to be appreciated one day. How history is going to regard what Mr. Obama has done in this moment is an open question.
DAVID REMNICK: The historical analogy between Dick Cheney and with respect Barack Obama is absurd. This is a president who's withdrawn from two wars, this is a president who is constantly talking about the balance between whether you’re agreeing with him or not, between a security state -- which came after 9/11, and keeping the country secure, and civil liberties. And he's struggled with this, flagrantly, maybe even ostentatiously on the subject of drones and the rest. And things have changed maybe too much on the margins for me or for Tavis, maybe not enough for others. But this is, to call it Dick Cheney, I can't agree at all.
MARY MATALIN: With equal respect, he demonized Dick Cheney; he opposed all of these security policies. And he’s now making the same point that Dick Cheney made repeatedly. Which is the bad guys have to be right only 1% of the time, we have to be right 100% of the time. This is not the only policy -- they're not Dick Cheney policies, the post-9/11 security policies that he opposed and now supports.
SMILEY: I think you can see, George, that while I think Mary is wrong respectfully, that he is no dick Cheney, I don't believe that, but it is the case that President Obama for too many of us has continued the Bush/Cheney policies on a lot of issues. Particularly on foreign policy. And this is much more about marginal retrenchment than it is about major reform.
JAMES CARVILLE: There's a piece coming in the new republic later today. And Eric Snowden, you think he might be on a postage stamp. I think he might get in the post office but it’s going to be—
MATALIN: On a most wanted.
