Monday, December 7, 2009

The Quaint Ann Althouse

by Smitty (h/t Little Miss Attila)

Ann Althouse hammers Maureen Dowd for inability to differentiate between private citizens (Tiger "How 'bout them" Woods) and civil servants and Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, or does she?
Woods had a constitutional right not to talk to the police, and I assume he was well advised by lawyers as he chose not to talk. He had a right to do what he thought was best for himself. The public may be interested in him, and he needs to worry about our loss of respect for him, which would hurt his lucrative career in product endorsement, but he doesn't owe us anything.

Rogers, on the other hand was working for the government, in a position of a public trust, and her refusal to account for herself was quite a different matter. The constitutional provision for executive privilege is not like the individual right against self-incrimination. It's a matter of separation of powers having to do with the ability of the executive branch to function independently. If it is invoked, it should not be Rogers protecting her own interests.
Let's set a few things straight, Ann:
  • Tiger's dalliance is ignoble and the fascination is symptomatic of a voyeuristic society. Nothing of lasting value will be gained from it, other than distraction from real issues like Warmaquiddick for the perpetrators.
  • Privacy is a notional in the Information Age. Some abstract "right to know" (an odd spelling of "money") will trigger illegalcurious behavior on cue. Ask Joe the Plumber.
  • The elite, on either side of the aisle, view the Constitution as seriously as the privacy of anyone creating difficulties for their agenda. Ask Senator Max Baucus.
  • The propaganda media are dedicated to sowing confusion in the public mind. Hiding the cretinism of a "civil servant" behind a bogus equivalence with a private citizen is just another service the propaganda media excretesprovides.
Then again, the formidable Ann Althouse probably understands all of this too well, and is merely being ironic.

5 comments:

  1. "he needs to worry about our loss of respect for him"
    - Ann Althouse
    ===

    Oh yeah, whatever will he do!

    -_-

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  2. Does she really think Nike is going to drop him just because he was nailing some tang on the side?

    Keep dreaming, Ann.

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  3. Soooo.......

    Anent the Baucus thing: s'pose that Max let the cat out of the bag because he wanted to prevent that 'cat' from becoming blackmail, endangering his ability to act in the interests of the US?

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  4. Actually Darleen at PW had an excellent commentary on Woods and race.

    Smitty, not sure why Althouse is catching the abuse, seems like MoDo is the primary culprit here in drawing strange analogies between Desiree Rogers and Tiger Woods.

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  5. "Advocacy media" just sounds so much more, professional than "Propaganda media", don't you think?

    ReplyDelete