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It's official: Treason is cool and traitors are acceptable sources for journalists. The Pulitzer Prize says so.

In giving the 2014 Public Service award to The Washington Post and The Guardian for publishing stories based on Edward Snowden's stolen documents, the Pulitzer judges gave their stamp of approval to news organizations that cooperate with criminals and compromise national security. No doubt the lesson will trickle down to scoop-hungry young journalists that they should cultivate people willing to betray America.

And why not? Those scribes whose sources steal the most important documents could win a Pulitzer and be the toast of anti-Americans around the world. No responsibility for catastrophe is required.

Other ambitious young people might conclude there is glory in being the next Snowden. If they're really successful, they might get to be part of a propaganda event with Vladimir Putin, as the fugitive Snowden was last week.

Indicted by a federal grand jury under the Espionage Act, he lives under the tender mercies of Putin and the warm embrace of the Communist state. He's safe as long as he's useful, as he was when Putin took time out from carving up his neighbors to use Snowden to mock America. Because the former NSA contractor didn't bat out a secret message with his eyes that he was being tortured, we must assume that he's voluntarily burnishing Putin's image during the campaign to crush the freedom of millions of Ukrainians.

Snowden's video appearance with the dictator, where he asked the ex-KGB agent a softball question about Russian surveillance, should have embarrassed the ­Pulitzer people. Coming days ­after they sanctified his dirty work, they were reminded that Snowden is no whistleblower.

He didn't stay to make his case to the American public or to fight the charges in court. He ran first to China and then to Russia to spill his national-security secrets about programs that aim to stop the next 9/11 before it happens.

Snowden stole thousands of documents in part by tricking colleagues into surrendering their security passwords to get access beyond his clearance level. He says he took the job to expose the system but, because of where he found sanctuary, the possibility that he was a foreign agent from the beginning ­remains an open question.

Either way, Snowden's actions represent one of the most serious security breaches in modern times. He intentionally alerted our enemies to our capabilities and programs, some of which must be scrapped at a cost of billions upon billions of dollars to taxpayers. So far, there are no known fatalities from his betrayal, but if there were, would that matter to him?

As for the Pulitzers, Snowden is not mentioned in the award, but for pure transparency, he should have been. The Washington Post and The Guardian didn't do traditional reporting. They were handed the documents under agreements with Snowden and his accomplices and wrote stories about them. Not to at least credit Snowden for making that work possible seems an act of convenient omission by the Pulitzer board.

Then again, what would the judges have said to mitigate their harm? That "we don't approve of how the papers obtained the documents, but we think they were important enough that it doesn't matter"?

That would have caused a firestorm, but it would have made their rationale for the Public Service award more open and kept faith with their stated standards of sparking a public debate over security and privacy. If nothing else, an informed debate about surveillance should be accompanied by an equally informed debate about journalism ethics and standards.

Instead, the judges made the award without caveat or explanation, and that will have a huge impact on the cultures of newsrooms and classrooms across the country. Any journalist who wants a Pulitzer now has a license to go for it with almost no limits.

With news organizations already trusted about as much as politicians, which is to say, not much, the award can only further diminish journalism in the eyes of ordinary Americans. If that was the goal of this Pulitzer, then it's definitely Mission Accomplished.


Comment: The message here is simple: anyone who has the guts to stand up to the psychopathic American government and reveal its illegal actions to the public is a traitor, and instead of rewarding such courageous individuals for blowing the whistle on their government's illegal acts, we should all shut up, accept it, and let the psychopaths continue to destroy what's left of our freedoms. This pandering to our government by the media is so obvious that it's tempting to wonder just how much the Pentagon paid Michael Goodwin to write such propagandistic drivel.


A 'Sharp' criticism

Reader Bradd Gold is no fan of Al Sharpton and his political enablers. "He seems to have a problem paying his personal taxes, as well as National Action Network's," Gold writes. "The situation is compounded when Democrats, Obama and de Blasio, in particular, constantly talk of citizens paying their fair share. Can anything be more hypocritical than speaking at a function for a man who makes a mockery of the very platform these people shove down our throats?"

Gotbaum's horse sense

It's hard to think of anything more tiresome than the sterile debate over carriage horses, so many thanks to former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum for an idea that would save the horses and improve street safety. She says there are unused spaces in Central Park where the horses could be boarded, and they and their customers would never have to leave the park.

Of course, anti-carriage zealots won't find her solution sufficiently radical, but that's their problem. The rest of us should say "aye" to Gotbaum's idea and giddyup to bigger problems.

A tall tale by Hillary

Hillary Clinton used her four years as secretary of state to fly around the world as a celebrity and avoid trouble spots so she could spin a book of triumph and run for president. With 2016 fast approaching, it's time for the book, and - surprise! - it will be a long piece of campaign literature.

In the real world, Clinton accomplished nothing and was a steward of failed policies from Asia to the Mideast to Europe. In the make-believe world of her presidential ambition, she was a global crusader for all that is good and true.

Publisher Simon & Schuster calls the book "Hard Choices" and promises an "inside account of the crises, choices and challenges she faced." It quotes her as saying such weighty things as, "All of us face hard choices in our lives," and, "Life is about making these choices, and how we handle them shapes the people we become."

Oy.

If Clinton offers only clichés and warmed-over Gwyneth Paltrow goop, readers will have an easy choice: Find another book.

Melissa the cheapskate

Studies show that conservatives give more to charity than liberals, so it figures that an ultra-liberal would give nothing. That's the case with Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, whose tax returns show a salary of $113,555, plus $14,952 in net rental income on her subsidized East Harlem house. She paid $20,460 in taxes to the feds and $12,838 to the city and state - but contributed zero, nada, nothing to charity, The Post reports.

Then again, she gives at the office. The speaker, who was flattered by a sketch likening her to Che Guevara, never hesitates to spend other people's money. She's only cheap with her own.