I like how Timm is mocking even the idea that the question was pre-vetted as the equivalent of 9-11 Trutherism. It was a prerecorded video message played during a show known to be tightly scripted, prefaced by the hostess and Putin playing up Snowden’s celebrity, and serious people actually think they played it blindly on air? The ‘Snowden’ op-ed would have been far more interesting if he’d explained who contacted him about doing the video, what exactly was asked of him, when and under what circumstances it was recorded, who recorded it, who then submitted it to RT, etc.

@bungdan “cleared ahead of time”? Lol. You sound like a Putin Truther. No matter what ES ever says, you’ll think Putin’s around every corner

— Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) April 18, 2014

nytimes.com

One of the program’s hostesses then said: “We have an unexpected, I would even say sensational, video message. We received it from a man who created a true information revolution by exposing the surveillance of tens of millions of people around the world.”

And there he was: the fugitive former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden.

In a stunningly bold poke at the White House, the Kremlin arranged for Mr. Snowden, who is wanted on espionage charges, to ask Mr. Putin about Russia’s surveillance practices. Told there was a question from Mr. Snowden, Mr. Putin responded slyly, saying, “Well, how could we do without this?”

…

In his recorded appearance, Mr. Snowden said that he had seen “little discussion of Russia’s own involvement in the policies of mass surveillance.”