It depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is—along with “truth,” “Bush,” “administration,” “extraordinary,” “scandal,” “free,” “single,” “instance,” “corruption,” “unearthed,” “the,” “that,” and “of.”
Those brave truth-eaters are at it again:
The truth is that the Bush administration has been extraordinarily scandal-free. Not a single instance of corruption has been unearthed. Only one significant member of the executive branch, Scooter Libby, has been convicted of anything. Whether the jury’s verdict was right or wrong, that case was an individual tragedy unrelated to any underlying wrongdoing by Libby or anyone else.
That’s one of the boys at Minnesota’s most popular blog, Power Line, written yesterday, Saturday, April 28th, 2007. —David Kurtz wants to know when the piper’s gonna get paid:
If you’re a hard-core conservative reading Powerline, does this sort of nonsense make you feel better about yourself or about your beliefs? For the uninformed, maybe it offers the assurance that things are okay. For the semi-informed, maybe it comforts them that things aren’t as bad as they may seem. At what point does the internal dissonance of those who read and write such garbage exact a personal toll—morally, emotionally, spiritually?
Kurtz is looking at it the wrong way. The piper’s already been paid and done packed up and left the building; that post at Power Line isn’t so much a strategy or a tactic as it is a symptom. —“I realize,” said John Holbo (some time ago), “it is really a quite serious matter that the right-wingers have gone around the bend and apparently aren’t coming back.” Yup; once again, yup.
“Apparently,” then, but: are they really not coming back? Is it possible to reach someone who’s so far around the bend? So removed from the world as it indisputably is? —I’d like to think I’m as open to dialogue as Detritus, who’d rather try teaching a young Hitler English than just shooting the little fuck; I’d like to think I could have a civil conversation with John Hinderaker, should I bump into him between planes at O’Hare, say, and not just punch him in the nose. But he has accused you and me and everyone we know of betraying America. And I’m only human.
But forget the punching, and leave aside for a moment the rather large question of whether such a conversation civil or otherwise could even begin to reach someone so far around the bend. What we’re talking about here isn’t a conversation. It’s a blog post, yes, and so it looks like it’s part of our great political multilogue, our give and take of political argument and debate, but it’s a truth-eating post. It’s no more an argument than David Broder’s columns are political journalism, or the Attorney General’s appearance before Congress was testimony. —This is cargo-cult stuff, hieratic gestures that mimic argument and journalism and testimony, incantations no more meaningful than a magic spell, attempts not to engage the world as it is but take it and through sheer force of will bend it to what it damn well ought to be.
Put it that way, and I think our responsibility is clear: engage them in conversation, yes; try to reach around that bend when you can, when reaching is possible. But don’t return those gestures. Don’t respond to the call of their spells. (We were supposed to be outraged when Giuliani promised another 9/11 if he weren’t elected president. Better instead to point and laugh. —Perhaps it seems unfair to sweep an entire wing of our national discourse beyond the pale? Very well, it is unfair. But all our arms are too short to box with a whole damn world of straw. Why should we bother?) —When they put on their robes and gin up another solemn ritual to mimic the fillips of civil discourse, do what you can to minimize the infection by discrediting their authority. Point and laugh. Point and laugh.
It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.
Detritus was both smarter and more optimistic than you and I. And he certainly had a better sense of humor than I do.