Steven P. BarrettPHARISEES AND PUNDITOCRACY (Pt. 2) (LINK)
August 7th 2008 17:03
By Steven Barrett
Nixon was mired in Watergate, his vice president Spiro Agnew was under fire and all hell was breaking loose during the final tense hours of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but at least he had the diplomatic/political street-smarts and sense of whom he was dealing with when he told the Russians what’d happen if they sent troops to bolster Egypt. We were actually closer to war in ‘73 than in ‘62.
And Clinton, to his credit, at least wasn’t willing to wring his hands when faced with attacts that occurred simultaneously with his legal and constitutional woes. His targeting was way off, but he didn’t hesitate going after al Qaida in August ‘98 after the Kenya/Sudan embassy bombings and Saddam’s challenge to him on weapons inspections later that winter during his impeachment hearings. (Why he wasn’t as consistent after the Khobar Towers and USS Cole attacks perhaps rests more on the Saudis and Yemenis than we may more fully know about for years.
But when Bush’s people, particularly then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice were presented with reliable information about an imminent attack on American soil, well … I’ll let the surviving relatives of loved ones lost on 9/11 have their say on that score.
Wouldn’t it be great to see an administration or more follow each other in succession un-mired in scandal, particularly sexual scandals, and all sorts of other “fascinating” intrigues that only fiction and lurid headline-grabbing hack reporters rise early in the morning for. Millions of parents hated have to explain the birds and bees and constitutional law pertaining to impeachment over perjury while watching the evening news.
Olasky’s not showing all his cards saying, “We need all the information we can get about candidates.” When Pharisee pundits, who teach college journalism of all things, start writing like this, what they’re saying is we need all the stuff necessary to pass judgment on them -- it toto -- to make them “accountable” for all sins past, present and/or likely to commit. That’s God’s job, and He doesn’t need a Fourth Estate comprised of Pharisees and Inspectors like the one in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.
I want to know what kind of poker players they’ll be when dealing with the likes of the madmen in Teheran, dealing with rogue Congresses, picking Supreme Court justices, Big Oil/Big Environment, reducing crime and handling massive crises like Katrina.
This isn't the same as saying it's okay to lie under oath, commit crimes. If the law's broken, there's a price to pay. But that price and how we go about seeking this price of justice mustn't be tempered by the scales of a Pharisee or Hugo's Inspector Javert.
Indeed, the Founders kept this in mind when they established the Electoral College, yet they were also very practical-minded men and some of them wound up on dollar bills.
Nixon was mired in Watergate, his vice president Spiro Agnew was under fire and all hell was breaking loose during the final tense hours of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but at least he had the diplomatic/political street-smarts and sense of whom he was dealing with when he told the Russians what’d happen if they sent troops to bolster Egypt. We were actually closer to war in ‘73 than in ‘62.
And Clinton, to his credit, at least wasn’t willing to wring his hands when faced with attacts that occurred simultaneously with his legal and constitutional woes. His targeting was way off, but he didn’t hesitate going after al Qaida in August ‘98 after the Kenya/Sudan embassy bombings and Saddam’s challenge to him on weapons inspections later that winter during his impeachment hearings. (Why he wasn’t as consistent after the Khobar Towers and USS Cole attacks perhaps rests more on the Saudis and Yemenis than we may more fully know about for years.
But when Bush’s people, particularly then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice were presented with reliable information about an imminent attack on American soil, well … I’ll let the surviving relatives of loved ones lost on 9/11 have their say on that score.
Wouldn’t it be great to see an administration or more follow each other in succession un-mired in scandal, particularly sexual scandals, and all sorts of other “fascinating” intrigues that only fiction and lurid headline-grabbing hack reporters rise early in the morning for. Millions of parents hated have to explain the birds and bees and constitutional law pertaining to impeachment over perjury while watching the evening news.
The Founders established the Electoral College, instead of creating a direct democracy, because they wanted individual voters to choose electors whose character they knew—and those electors would then select a president whose character they knew. Today, we depend on media representatives to tell us the truth, even when it means exposing a candidate playing footsie with falsehood.”
I want to know what kind of poker players they’ll be when dealing with the likes of the madmen in Teheran, dealing with rogue Congresses, picking Supreme Court justices, Big Oil/Big Environment, reducing crime and handling massive crises like Katrina.
This isn't the same as saying it's okay to lie under oath, commit crimes. If the law's broken, there's a price to pay. But that price and how we go about seeking this price of justice mustn't be tempered by the scales of a Pharisee or Hugo's Inspector Javert.
Indeed, the Founders kept this in mind when they established the Electoral College, yet they were also very practical-minded men and some of them wound up on dollar bills.
Marvin Olasky is editor-in-chief of the national news magazine World, provost of The King's College, and a professor of journalism at The University of Texas at Austin. For additional commentary by Marvin Olasky throughout the week, go to www.worldontheweb.com.
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