The Panama Papers “leak” is blatantly a propaganda op, with ties to soft imperialism’s usual suspects — Open Society, USAID, the Ford Foundation etc — and leading off with the most crude attacks on Putin and Assad. It’s so blatant I found myself wondering if it were intentional. Is it to further normalize the credulous boobery of the knowing knowers who honed their belligerent stupidity on Snowwald? Whatever the case, it’s certainly fitting, and not at all surprising, that Snowden, the Way-Better-Than-Manning avatar of scare quote dissidence, was among the very first Twitter accounts to tweet out a link to The Biggest Most Important Leak ever.

These spectacles are useful in two ways: you get an idea of what’s bugging a certain segment of the ruling class, and you identify the biggest tools and operatives in media by the avidity with which they promote this stuff. The Guardian has for the umpteenth time made…