The Washington Post, the pre-Politico newsletter of choice for The Political Establishment, has the worst opinion section in America. Today, they once again prove why: the paper, which helped to break the NSA Prism spying story, editorializes that the U.S. government must stop Edward Snowden from leaking any more of that awful news.

Presumably so that Washington Post reporters cannot cover it? The editorial board of the Washington Post—a newspaper with some of the best national security reporters in America, a newspaper whose reporter Barton Gellman was approached directly by Edward Snowden, and a newspaper that chose to publish only four of the 41 Powerpoint slides that Snowden gave to Gellman— is practically praying for Edward Snowden to be muzzled, so that no more of those news stories might be leaked to papers like, you know, the Washington Post. "How to Keep Edward Snowden From Leaking More NSA Secrets," is the editorial's headline. ("...To Us" is only implied.)

At least we know that the Washington Post's terrible editorial board is fully independent from its shrinking newsroom!

In fact, the first U.S. priority should be to prevent Mr. Snowden from leaking information that harms efforts to fight terrorism and conduct legitimate intelligence operations. Documents published so far by news organizations have shed useful light on some NSA programs and raised questions that deserve debate, such as whether a government agency should build a database of Americans’ phone records. But Mr. Snowden is reported to have stolen many more documents, encrypted copies of which may have been given to allies such as the WikiLeaks organization... The best solution for both Mr. Snowden and the Obama administration would be his surrender to U.S. authorities, followed by a plea negotiation.

Take note, potential leakers and whistleblowers inside the U.S. government: the official stance of the Washington Post's editorial board is that you should shut up and go to jail. Would-be Washington Post sources may wish to take that information into consideration when choosing where to leak to.

With such a welcoming attitude at the WaPo, it's crazy that Edward Snowden ultimately chose to leak to The Guardian, right? What was he thinking?? Well, water under the bridge, and all that. It's not as if the WaPo is jealous or anything. Not at all! In fact, they've even had their media reporter, Paul Farhi, write a story about it all today, with the not at all patronizing headline, "The Guardian: Small British paper makes big impact with NSA stories."

For a newspaper that’s small and underweight even by British standards, the Guardian has a knack for making some big noises, both in its home market and across the pond.

Well, isn't that just adorable? A "small and underweight" little rag like The Guardian, getting itself a big old story? They must be so proud to have earned themselves a write-up in a real newspaper like the Washington Post. The Guardian, a tiny little paper that last year announced it would cut its newsroom staff to less than 600, gets to experience the thrill of being condescended to by the Washington Post, a big important newspaper that last year announced it would cut its newsroom staff to less than 600.

The Guardian's global monthly unique visitors: 23.2 million 41 million in May, per Guardian press officer Gennady Kolker

The Washington Post's monthly unique visitors: 17.2 million

To be fair, being considered less readable than THE POLITICO would be enough to fuck up anyone's attitude.

[Photo: AP]