AnalPhilosopher

“[I]t is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little,
and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge.” —John Locke, 1689

“[P]hilosophy can no more show a man what he should attach importance to
than geometry can show a man where he should stand.” —Peter Winch, 1968

L'Affaire Rove

Is anyone besides me put off by the howling and whining about Karl Rove? See here. If the man violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, he'll be prosecuted. If he didn't, he won't. Let the legal process work. But liberals and journalists have no interest in the legal process. Liberals hate Rove almost as much as, and perhaps more than, they hate President Bush, for they think the president a puppet of Rove. If they can topple Rove, they will (they think) weaken the president. Journalists have no patience. They need a story, especially during the dog days of summer when not much else is happening in Washington. If the story isn't there, they manufacture it. I think a lot of journalists despise Rove and other members of the administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney. Journalists need leaks, and this administration is almost leakproof. It frustrates journalists. Frustration leads to aggression. If there is any justice in this world, the journalistic obsession with this story will turn people against journalists even more than they already are.

Addendum: Liberals have been out of power for so long, in every branch of government (with the possible exception of the Supreme Court), that they've become the opposition party. They seem incapable of acting. All they do is react to what conservatives do. They have no programs; they have only criticisms. Liberal impotence can be measured by the degree to which liberals grasp for any advantage, however small, such as taking down the president's adviser. It's sad. Liberals should get out of their negative, defeatist mindset. They need to decide—and articulate—what they stand for, what they want, and why they want it. Unless and until they do this, they will remain powerless. Do I want liberals to regain power? No. Liberal programs have all but destroyed this great country. Do I want liberals to vigorously present their ideas? Yes. Our system needs two healthy political moralities (or parties), not just one.

Addendum 2: Michelle Malkin has a long post about what she calls "Rove-Mania."

James Drake (mail):
Sandy Berger's sentencing for stealing and destroying classified documents from the National Archive has been kicked further down the road, until September. Objectively, as Marxists would say, all this beating of drums over Rove's putative crime drowns out coverage of Berger's actual one.
7.15.2005 9:22pm
lazy (mail) (www):
I wonder if you felt the same way towards the media (and the conservatives) during the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. It would seem to me that the principle you are taking issue with applies in both cases, even if the hysteria during the prior event was exponentially greater.
7.17.2005 3:43pm
Keith Burgess-Jackson (mail) (www):
Let the legal process work. That's a principled position.
7.17.2005 4:55pm
lazy (mail) (www):
Fair enough. I thought your post was particularly well written because of the fact you can pretty much use it exactly as it is for both cases. The media stuff is right on, and you can substitute the fact that the conservatives hated Clinton perhaps more than they hate the devil. Of course, your addendum is specific to your current opinion, but I wonder if you are one who sees things as cyclical with politics...that is, the liberals (at least in Congress) ruled for many years, and now the conservatives have a firm hold on things. Or do you think it's a progressive thing (not in the political sense of the word), and things are getting gradually more conservative due to some deeper purpose, or goal, never to return to (at least the extremes of) liberalism.
7.17.2005 5:21pm
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