Probably Daniel Ellsberg. I don't know if he actually had higher approval rate than Nixon, but considering Nixon had to resign after that, I'm thinking he did.

Probably Daniel Ellsberg. I don't know if he actually had higher approval rate than Nixon, but considering Nixon had to resign after that, I'm thinking he did. There are also a lot of parallels between Ellsberg and Snowden, and a lot of parallels between Nixon and Obama, too, for that matter. I actually think what Obama did (or continued to do) was much worse that what Nixon did in regards to the mass surveillance and spying. Nixon would've been impeached if he would've pushed the spying machine so far. In fact, he was almost impeached for what he did then, too, which is why he resigned first to save himself the life-long shame. Maybe Obama can learn from that and do the same. It's also the NYT that protected Ellsberg back then, although I'd say the NYT has been very reactive in Snowden's case, and TheGuardian was the most pro-active one in defending him, by far. I recommend watching this documentary about Ellsberg. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwXylIaJ_Lg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwXylIaJ_Lg If only there were more people like Ellsberg, Manning and Snowden, and we wouldn't have to wait decades before the crimes and lies of the military industrial complex or the government get exposed. That would be something, but for that to happen, people need to ask for much, much stronger whistleblower laws. Heck, it should be a Constitutional amendment, because I think whistleblowing is absolutely vital to a properly functional democracy. Without it, governments become rotten and corrupt, and the the public can only react decades later when it's too much to bear. It shouldn't be like that. The public should be able to react to government wrongdoing a lot sooner, to correct the course.