Why? Can't a person who is naturally prone to fervent dedication change from one ideology to another? I mean, for reference, look at a billion examples of religious converts, or for perhaps a better analogy to Snowden, look at /r/atheism.
> That was intentionally incendiary[...]. Don't take it personally. :D [...] I just wanted to be clear. I'm not really an ugly american. I just play one on the intarwebs [sic].
A played-up personality on one side, and five years of changing beliefs, make this less of a contradiction IMO. Considering the decision to leak may also have triggered him to re-evaluate some of his other views, in a "What else was I lied to about?"/"What else was I wrong about?" sort of way. I don't see any reason why both couldn't be a true reflection of his views at the time.
I might think it's more plausible since I myself have gone from wildly left wing youth to libertarian left adult. Recognizing that faith in state is as bogus as faith in religion has great impact on one's political opinions
& sometimes I like to dial things up on the internet too
You are called a right-winger if you like or dislike this statement.
As for the latter points, it's perfectly pleasurable for someone to go in idealistic/extreme thinking NSA is totally good and leakers are totally bad. Once hired he gets hit with reality which is more in the middle. The lack of imagination-reality correspondence is interpreted as a signal that there are systemic problems (as basically the opposites are true) and he thus undermines the bad system.
It's difficult to reconcile the image of Snowden the idealistic whistleblower with Snowden the right-wing Islamophobic security-state cheerleader who wanted leakers to be shot in the balls, from just a couple of years earlier.
At least one of these is a manufactured persona, and I don't know which.