Because he did such a valuable service for journalism and then vanished into Russia, it allowed a lot of people to think Edward Snowden shared their politics for a long time without realizing he’s a lunatic goldbug libertarian who was willing to work for the NSA in the first place.
Same for all the American Communists who missed the memo John Kiriakou is an anticommunist and only blew the whistle because he thinks CIA should go back to focusing on anticommunism.