Vlad Putin gives SXSW a hand

It might seem a bit pompous of Kansas Republican Mike Pompeo to ask SXSW to cancel its much-advertised, long-distance interview Monday with Vlad Putin’s favorite foreign guest.

But Pompeo, the junior member of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a former Army captain and a West Point graduate, has some arguable reasons:

“The panel, ‘A Virtual Conversation with Edward Snowden,’ will focus on the impact of the NSA spying revelations and how technology can be used to protect privacy.

“Snowden’s ‘only apparent qualification,’ Pompeo wrote, ‘is his willingness to steal from his own government and then flee to that beacon of First Amendment freedoms, the Russia of Vladimir Putin.'”

Indeed, it is the only reason for the “conversation,” in which Snowden—having helped put SXSW back on a media stage that might be tiring of it—allegedly will answer questions from the Austin audience, even the unadoring kind. Instead of just making speeches.

Whether there will be any unadoring “questions” from the primarily leftist audience remains to be seen. Pompeo offers two the leftists might not think of: “including why [Snowden] chose to leak ‘purely military secrets’ with no bearing on domestic surveillance, and…the extent of his relationship with the Russian government, ‘financial or otherwise.’”

Via Instapundit,

UPDATE:  Apparently neither of Pompeo’s questions were asked. No surprise there. No one even asked why Snowden fled to Russia, no champion of privacy or freedom whatsoever.