The Unbearable Dumbness Of Politics.

Glenn Reynolds, in referencing 60 Minutes invocation of Sandy Berger to counter Louis Freeh's accusations of Bill Clinton's alleged sell-out to the Saudis asks, "Am I wrong, or is politics just getting . . . dumber lately?" And Bill Hobbs announced that he's giving political blogging the old heave-ho but leaves us with a little advice:

Journalism isn't difficult - and you don't need a four-year degree to do it or do it well. You need to be able to ask the right question, you need to know how to find information, you need to write reasonably well, and you need to be accurate and be honest. And you need a place to publish.

From what I've been seeing and hearing, both of these big-time bloggers are quite right.

Over the weekend, I received a comment that informed me that not only was Mary Mapes the greatest producer ever on 60 Minutes but that just by questioning her, and pointing out that she can't be that fantastic if she failed to follow the basic tenets of her craft, I was in lock step with the president.

On one of the news shows yesterday, Gary Bauer was complaining about Harriet Miers and bemoaned the fact that Republican presidents have put seven of the nine justices onto the Supreme Court, and what do evangelicals have to show for it? His main concerns, as usual, were with the Establishment Clause and Roe v. Wade. It occurred to me that just maybe those Republican presidents Bauers was criticizing didn't want a Supreme Court made in the mind of Gary Bauer. Maybe those presidents recognized that some of the ideas of evangelicals and ultra-right wingers weren't exactly the best things for the country. Or rather, they might have noticed that their conservative constituents want exactly the same sort of activism that liberals want, only from a different set of criteria.

But we mustn't let that bit of conjecture cloud our thinking. We all must pick a "side" and stay there. One cannot, in the view of too many, agree and disagree with the same politician or journalist and refuse to have one's thinking defined by association.

For instance, it has become almost comical trying to get it through to some people that it is possible to support President Bush on terrorism and the war, even Iraq, and believe that he has made a hash of just about everything else, including the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. But that isn't simplistic thinking and it messes with the minds of the single-dimensioned.

If you believe in a free press and its role in opposition to the government, you cannot have criticism of it, unless that criticism is that the press is too soft of government. Or, conversely, quoting press accounts that are unfavorable to the president means you are a toady of the dreaded MSM.

It's an insane and juvenile way of looking at anything, let alone politics.

If I may be so rude as to speculate on someone else's thinking, this has to be how Christopher Hitchens feels just about every day. It is assumed that because he supports the war in Iraq, he is now a neo-con, has secret meetings with Dick Cheney and suddenly has found God and the Christian Coalition. He has abandoned the Palestinians and Trotsky and thinks that Henry Kissinger is a swell guy. Nonsense. In fact, Hitchens has made pains to say that the very idea of liberating Iraq should be a liberal cause, but it isn't because the president's a stupid conservative who just can't do anything right.

Allow me to state the obvious by allowing that very few people get everything right, and most people get most things wrong. Clinton was right on Kosovo and his actions saved hundreds of thousands of lives. He was terribly wrong about al Qaeda and that cost many, many lives.

But we want our politics simple so we end up getting simple-minded politics. We can't deplore Bill Bennett's self-proclaimed monopoly on morality and see that the last imbroglio he has gotten himself into is balderdash. We can't side with the Democrats on much of their agenda and realize that they have made it virtually impossible for them to run a credible candidate for president.

There are quite a few conservative bloggers openly talking rebellion against the GOP, or at least Bush, which has delighted the left to no end. Those lefty bloggers can now sit back and sneer I-told-you-sos and in true Ted Rall fashion, portray Bush voters as stupid and sinister all at the same time.

Even polls get misunderstood. Job approval ratings are construed by most people as meaning that the country is uniformly up in arms and are this close to marching on DC with picks and torches to get Rove's Monster. Again, nonsense. I for one am disappointed in the progress of the war, and if asked I would say that I do not approve of the handling of the war at this moment. But I certainly would not advocate that Bush and Cheney step down so that we can have a President Hastert pull all US troops from the Middle East, South Korea, Europe and downtown New Orleans to go where, exactly?

I would like the war to stop. Absolutely. Stopping to me means winning, not running. I see that the economy is flagging, that government spending and cronyism is rampant and that this administration is grabbing too much power to itself and using fear to grab even more. And yet, I live in a representative democracy and must wait for the next election.

I believe that indictments will be coming in the Plame investigation. I will not be sorry to see Karl Rove gone if he has done wrong. He's overstayed his welcome, anyway. However, if he has not done anything illegal, the president has every right to keep him on. The crying over supposed dirty tricks is disingenuous and tiresome. I wouldn't miss Tom DeLay, but I don't think that his very own indictments are going to go anywhere. I do think that there is a good chance that Rick Santorum will be looking for a new job soon and I like the prospect of that.

I would like to see a liberal hawk run for president in 2008, if only to remind the GOP that they don't have a lock on the votes that got them to the show last time. I would like to see the repeal of the PATRIOT ACT and CFR. I do not want Roe to be overturned, yet I understand that late term abortion, when done solely for birth control reasons, is an abomination.

I believe that everyone has the right to choose how their life should end and still think that Terri Schiavo was dealt with glibly and mercilessly.

All of this tells a certain kind of person that my thinking is at best muddled and that I should not be allowed to vote, let alone have an opinion. But issue sand problems are not always easily remedied. And yet, I am able to vote for candidates with whom I disagree with because they are the best choice of what we have available. For the likes of Gary Bauer or, say, Paul Krugman, politicians must have everything "right" with them before they are given public imprimatur.

So yes, Glenn, politics are betting dumber because we are letting it. And I'm sorry to see Bill Hobbs go, but I understand.

Comments

[elendil]

Guess what? You're now famous. Congratulations!

[Jon]

Who wants to attack Iran US or UK ?

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2005/10/16/afx2279243.html

[Jimbo2K5]

"I would like the war to stop. Absolutely. Stopping to me means winning, not running."

And what exactly constitutes winning in this fiasco now that it is totally FUBAR? All the insurgents are going to surrender and toss down their weapons, or maybe just move to Iran or something? All of the mullahs praising Dubya and his wisdom in showing them the way? What can possibly happen that you see as winning?

The Iraqi people surely are not the winners here. They are likely to be at each others throats for years to come now that we have removed the only stabilizing (albeit brutal) force they had, and so thoroughly trashed their infrastructure that it will take years for them to rebuild. Oh yeah. We won't let them do it, we'll bring in out own contractors.

Haliburton has done pretty well, and Blackwater and their mercenaries are looking like winners. The press looks like a bunch of losers, but after seeing so many of their own blown away, I guess I'd watch what I report too.

I generally agree with many of your sentiments you state here, but as hard as I try, I can't think of any realistic scenario that somehow equates to winning.