...still my hero.

A friend responded to this video saying, "I hate the guy's attitude. Its like he thinks he's jesus or something."
My take is that it's hard to say anything useful without coming across that way. He's not an actor who has been trained how to "act" to influence people, he's a geek.
He also has the disadvantage that his appearance isn't the "look" we have been taught is the look of a hero either. Many more villains in movies and tv are cast with that narrow face/longer nose look, while heroes are almost always rounder faced with strong jaws. (Think how 'jolly' Jay Leno looks with that massive jaw vs, for example, the "Duke" who was the wimpy villain in the musical Moulin Rouge.) Can you think of any narrow faced actors that get heroic roles (except in comedies?) I think it is a subtle influence on most people.

I also have to cut him some slack for the pressure he must be under. How would I feel if I had to flee to my country's supposed arch enemy, the "evil empire", and to do so because my home country wanted to kill me for doing what I knew was right and what I had been taught was the "American" thing to do?

He may have broken some laws, but he is standing for a higher law, the supreme law. What is one to do when confronted with such a contradiction, such a dilemma?