Commenting to Damian Thompson's article on the Torygraph:

Snowden will not be a "Rightwing" hero, the author is deluded, if he means "Republican" or "Conservative" with the "Rightwing".

Some of them are cheering him because they see him hurting Obama, but in fact he's hurting the intelligence apparatus that both main parties in USA have been building since the beginning of the Cold War and a lot of Republicans don't like this.

Think of Ari Fleischer who has lauded Obama for his actions, calling his second term "The fourth term of George W. Bush."

Instead I think he will be a hero to a lot of people coming from all political ideologies, and probably a traitor to people from most political ideologies. It will be mixed, but those who dislike the current political and geopolitical situation overall in US and in the World will see him the most positively.

What comes to Obama, he will certainly serve his term to the end, probably pretty popular still but his reputation stained by this. One has to remember that this is not about the person in the Oval Office, but the deeper currents in the government that go on from administration from administration.

To truly change things, policies have to be changed, laws have to be changed to create "firewalls", vast amount of personnel needs to be changed and other arms of the government need to be galvanized to do their job in reining in the presidency and the intelligence agencies when they go too far. (I doubt this will happen.)

Observe how Congress has failed in this even when in other issues the party that hasn't been and has wanted to get to the Oval Office has gone very far to obsctruct the presidents. The intelligence agencies, like Pentagon, have been a kind of holy cow hat every politician worships publicly and avoids criticizing "too much".