[ianhawes]

If anyone turned it into a Kardashian spectacle it was Snowden himself. His video interview and Q&A have only served to publicize himself. He could have easily and safely leaked incriminating documents to a journalist and achieved the same effect.

[nos4A2]

Also, by making his identity public, he made sure that "Booz Employee dies in car crash" does not happen, its hard to make a public figure "disappear" without a fair trial.

[jebblue]

Snopes agrees with you, the 34 people listed by them on the following page who were associated with either Bill or Hilary Clinton all died of explainable natural causes, suicides or natural deaths during the 90s, mostly 1992 to 1994:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/bodycount.asp

[nknighthb]

Please don't drag that tired old conspiracy theory into this. If you start with just 500 people and kill them off at ~0.8%/year (roughly the annual US death rate), at the end of ten years close to 40 of them should be dead, and there are a lot more than 500 people "associated" with the Clintons.

[nknighthb]

Anonymous leaks happen all the time. They tend to be ignored.

Snowden calculated this for maximum media coverage and succeeded brilliantly. That he is a visible part of the story isn't a side effect, it's necessary for attention and credibility.