… the death of Tim Russert, one of the few political analysts and observers who publicly demonstrated authentic passion for his work and for the American political system, and from whom we could all learn something about the arts of communication, rhetoric, and conversational negotiation.
… and from Senator Joseph Lieberman, an observation about Russert that, to me, is one of the highest compliments one human being can pay another:
… and just keep still and resign.
"Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who gained national prominence relentlessly pursuing Wall Street wrongdoing, has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a law enforcement official and a person briefed on the investigation….
"Mr. Spitzer, a first term Democrat, today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.” He did not address his political future."
It’s not a private matter, unless hiring a prostitute has suddenly become legal in New York state … especially when you’re the governor, and especially when you’ve prosecuted such cases yourself while publicly expressing your moral indignation.
Full story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/nyregion/10cnd-spitzer.html
Link to a representative set of blog reactions to the story here:
Every now and then, I puzzle over the idea of converting this blog to a political blog, but so far have kept that idea in my back pocket. To effectively comment on politics — the way I would want to do it — I would have to devote some large chunk of nearly every day to keeping up with political news and commentary all over the web, at the very least, and certainly couldn’t ignore other forms of media. I also doubt that I would be content with a politics-as-current-events approach, and would want to explore the historical (or broader social and cultural) context for just about everything political. So, while this may be something I’ll try to take on in that hazy future when I have more time (??), for now the back pocket will stay mostly zipped shut.
Still, the story about Ron Paul raising 4.2 million dollars for his presidential bid in one day — a historical fundraising record — has definitely got my attention. I honestly don’t know that much about Paul, though I understand he’s favored in libertarian circles, and have noticed how much the media outlets seem to choke when they try to describe him. That’s probably as telling as anything else. And I do think it was clever of Paul to associate his fundraising extravaganza with Guy Fawkes Day, and, intentionally or not, with the film V for Vendetta. Given what appear to be his ideas, and the attempt of his candidacy to represent a challenge to the existing (and entrenched) political establishment, the metaphors all hang together quite nicely.
The Cato Institute released a statement suggesting that Paul’s success was “a clear sign that there is a yearning by the Republican grassroots for the party to return to its historic small government roots.” This is probably true, though it’s likely as much wishful thinking as anything else. I would say, however, that there is a tendency for American citizens to swing away from obviously abusive power structures, and this (like the recent shifts in congressional power from Republican to Democrat) may be evidence of that happening. There is of course a mountain of writing I could spit out on this subject alone, if this was a political blog … which it ain’t. Right? Right. In any case, such shifts are not guaranteed, do not necessarily last, and typically do not happen fast enough or with enough depth … but we’ll see.
There is a particularly good (and typically good, I should add) analysis of The Ron Paul Phenomenon from Glenn Greenwald. Every time I look at it, there is another handful of new comments — 484 when I started writing this, and 492 right now. If you read no other article about what has happened, do take the time to read that one.
I will probably come back to this, though I’m not sure when. I haven’t had much luck keeping up with this blog with my classes going on; it turns out that it’s a little tougher to add “blog” to the work/life/school paradigm than I had expected. But it’s all about learning how to get things done, so for this term, maybe, I’ll just observe what does and doesn’t work and have better luck next term. Despite my absence, I’ve had some fairly regular traffic, so thanks very much to all who’ve stopped by. I can’t even express how much I appreciate it.
